Risk Assessment for Hexamine Nitration into RDX

Authors

  • Erick Braga Ferrão Galante IME - Instituto Militar de Engenharia
  • Daniele Mesquita Bordalo da Costa UFRJ
  • Assed Naked Haddad UFRJ
  • Isaac José Antônio Luquetti dos Santos CNEN/IEN/DEEN/SEESC

Keywords:

Risk Assessment, Explosives, Nitration, Hexogen (RDX), HazOp

Abstract

Explosives are widely used in extraction of ores,melts and fuels and in the safe and economical demolition of structures. These applications demonstrate the value of explosives to society and the reason why they are manufactured worldwide despite the hazard of their preparation. Hence,this paper focuses on the manufactory of the military explosive Hexogen (also known as RDX). The characteristics of the process are described by the analysis of a specify manufactory plant. The chosen analysis tool is the Hazard and Operability Study – HazOp. Historically, this methodology has been applied at chemical industries and is used in industrial process operability analysis. This study analyses seven critical nodes in the RDX manufacturing process, identifies several deviations, and causes and consequences. From these results, improvements in the units are suggested and actual conditions discussed. It is important to remark that this work is an initial approach to analysis of the manufacturing process of RDX using the HazOp methodology.


Downloads

Published

2014-11-23

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 4 (2014): OCT./DEC.

Section

Original Papers

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0. Authors are free to Share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and Adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially). JATM allow the authors to retain publishing rights without restrictions.