During the 60 years that the Miami Valley Innovation Center was in operation there were two major events that significantly affected the way chemical reactions were done there:� A 3-Liter reactor exploded in 1961 totally destroying the lightly barricaded facility housing it and other equipment. No one was hurt but it was a wake-up call that a better facility was needed. It also showed us how small reactors can result in huge and unexpected explosions.� A runaway reaction in 1998 resulted in a huge chemical cloud that significantly engulfed the site from just 10 kilograms of total mixture. It was completely unanticipated since the reaction included a chemical that had a NFPA Reactivity Hazard of 1 mixed with a chemical that had a Reactivity Hazard of 0. Significant precautions were taken including testing at small scale and gradually increasing to 10 kilograms of total chemical mixture. The reaction was also performed several times at the 10 kilogram scale without incident. Changing one minor detail probably caused the incident. The incident also taught us we needed to significantly improve the way our exhaust systems were designed.Events of this magnitude are rare but help to teach us what we need to do to prevent future events. Key learnings from these near-miss incidents will be presented including considerations for designing and locating a facility for using pressure vessels and using reactive chemicals.Methods for evaluating blast loads and fragments resulting from pressure vessel failure will be presented along with methods that determine the response of structures to these loads. Both simplified and detailed analysis methods will be discussed. An example case involving the application of these methods to cells used for pressure vessels at P&G will be provided to illustrate the application of these methods.

Lessons learned on surviving worst-case reactivity hazards:  Special considerations for designing a facility for operating pressure vessels and equipment for processing highly reactive chemicals

246th National Meeting (2013)

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