Lending industrial experience through reactive hazard examples in university safety instruction

Abstract

Past serious reactive chemical accidents have had a profound impact on the chemical industry and the approaches taken toward process safety. Much of this knowledge has been picked up and presented as a part of the chemical engineering educational curriculum. However, the T2 Laboratories Inc., runaway reaction incident in 2007 provided the catalyst to spur AIChE and ABET to formally introduce a “process safety” education requirement into the accreditation program criteria. One of the areas that must become an integral part of the education of future chemical engineers is the understanding and recognition of reactive hazards. University professors have a key role in this education, and while some have had exposure to reactive hazards through industry experiences, it makes sense to invite industrial professionals to lend their expertise to the classroom. In this article, we describe a section on reactive hazards that has been developed and presented in the senior design classes in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. This section has been developed and presented jointly by university faculty and an engineer from industry. Hands‐on exercises and homework examples were developed to provide students with opportunities to apply important principles. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 34: 360–367, 2015