Practical Procedure for the Assessment of Thermal Risks

The first step of the assessment is screening for the energy potential of a sample of a reaction mass, where a reaction has to be assessed, or of a sample of a substance, where the thermal stability has to be assessed. This may be obtained from a dynamic DSC experiment on samples of the reaction mass taken before, during, and after the reaction. Obviously, when the thermal stability of a sample has to be assessed, this is reduced to a representative sample of the reacting mass. If there is no significant energy potential, such as if the adiabatic temperature rise is less than 50 K and there is no overpressure, the study can be stopped at this stage. 

If a significant energy potential is found, one must find out if it stems from the main reaction or from a secondary reaction  

Figu re 3.6 Overview of an assessment procedure showing the different steps and the data required for building the failure 

the MTSR plays a key role as it is the result of the loss of control of the main reaction, and is the temperature for which the thermal stability must be ensured. 

This study may be carried out in steps of increasing degree of detail, in order to provide the required data in the required accuracy  

---