The energetic material cyclo-4,3,5-trimethylene-2,4,6-trinitramine (RDX) has been widely used as explosive and propellant ingredients in the military industry. It is usually produced by hexamine nitration reaction in continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). This manufacturing process is quite dangerous and always causes fire incidents or explosion owing to its thermal instability in its nitration reaction or purification processes. In this investigation, we used its reaction kinetics parameters to evaluate the thermal hazard conditions and stable reaction criteria in the reaction systems of continuous stirred tank reactor. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.