Integration of techniques and alarm sequences for fault detection and diagnosis

This work has been developed around the integration of techniques for the early fault detection and diagnosis in industrial processes. It has been considered the sequence of the alarms of a fluidized catalytic Cracking Unit and its use in early fault detection and diagnosis. The specific objectives are process safety, operational reliability and alarm management. The aim of this work and previous research work is to increase process safety and operational reliability and to decrease the number of alarms that are presented to the operators of industrial plants, contributing to the appropriate fault detection and troubleshooting. First we make a review of our drivers for the fault detection and diagnosis and their integration. Its application is subsequently displayed in a set of data associated with a real fault of a fluidized catalytic cracking plant. Then we discuss the techniques proposed for integration and the issue of the development of an intelligent software tool for the early fault detection and diagnosis, which is already in operation at one of the crude oil refineries in Colombia.