A fault diagnosis method based on signed directed graph and matrix for nuclear power plants

• “Rules matrix” is proposed for FDD.
• “State matrix” is proposed to solve SDG online inference.
• SDG inference and search method are combined for FDD.

In order to solve SDG online fault diagnosis and inference, matrix diagnosis and inference methods are proposed for fault detection and diagnosis (FDD). Firstly, “rules matrix” based on SDG model is used for FDD. Secondly, “status matrix” is proposed to achieve SDG online inference. According to different diagnosis results, “status matrix” is applied for the depth-first search and the breadth-first search respectively to find the propagation paths of each fault. Finally, the SDG model of the secondary-loop system in pressurized water reactor (PWR) is built to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The simulation experiment results indicate that the “status matrix” used for online inference can be used to find the fault propagation paths and to explain the causes for fault. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed method is one of the fault diagnosis for nuclear power plants (NPPs), which can be used to facilitate the development of fault diagnostic system.