A methodology for fault diagnosis in large chemical processes and an application to a multistage flash desalination process: Part II

In Part I, an efficient method for identifying faults in large processes was presented. The whole plant is divided into sectors by using structural, functional, or causal decomposition. A signed directed graph (SDG) is the model used for each sector. The SDG represents interactions among process variables. This qualitative model is used to carry out qualitative simulation for all possible faults. The output of this step is information about the process behaviour. This information is used to build rules. When a symptom is detected in one sector, its rules are evaluated using on-line data and fuzzy logic to yield the diagnosis. In this paper the proposed methodology is applied to a multiple stage flash (MSF) desalination process. This process is composed of sequential flash chambers. It was designed for a pilot plant that produces drinkable water for a community in Argentina; that is, it is a real case. Due to the large number of variables, recycles, phase changes, etc., this process is a good challenge for the proposed diagnosis method.