Energy-based visualisation of a counter-flow heat exchanger for the purpose of fault identification

Abstract

The need for fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) is becoming increasingly important for industrial processes as the complexity of processes increases. A state space model of a counter-flow heat exchanger is used study to illustrate the usefulness of energy-based FDD. Energy is regarded as a unifying parameter to uniquely describe the state of the heat exchanger under fault conditions of fouling and heat leakage. Both steady state and transient energy-based residuals are proposed for the purpose of FDD. The results indicate that the use of energy-based residuals seems viable and warrant further investigation