The use of mass and energy balances for observation in process plant diagnosis

A method is described that uses the invariant mass and energy conservation laws in order to extract a detailed pattern of mass and energy flows from the instrumentation of a process plant. The basic feature of the method is that it is applicable to a large range of plant operational situations, such as those initiated by unforeseen failures, failures with dynamic symptoms, multiple failures, and failures during sequential operations.<br/><br/>The authors' intentions with this interim progress report are to describe the basic ideas behind the method, as well as to discuss some of its implications for man-computer cooperation in process plant diagnosis.