553g Fault-Tolerant Process Control: Nonlinear Fdi and Reconfiguration

Charles McFall, Adiwinata Gani, Prashant Mhaskar, Panagiotis D. Christofides, and James F. Davis Chemical plants are large-scale systems that involve a complex, distributed arrangement of a number of processing units (reactors, distillation columns, absorbers, pumps, heat exchangers, etc.) connected in series or in parallel, with recycle of material and energy integration among various parts of the plant. The interconnections among the different units imply that faults will have consequences for the stability and performance of, not only the particular units where the faults may have originated, but other units as well. The interconnection of the units, however, complicates the problem of locating and isolating the fault especially when faults in one unit may cause faults in other units. In some severe cases, if not diagnosed and treated quickly and adequately, the effects of a fault originating in one unit may manifest itself, propagate , and develop into a total failure that forces shutdown of all the units.