Energy-based visualisation of a counter-flow heat exchanger for the purpose of fault identification

The need for fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) is becoming increasingly important for industrial processes as the complexity of processes increases. A state space model of a counter-flow heat exchanger is used study to illustrate the usefulness of energy-based FDD. Energy is regarded as a unifying parameter to uniquely describe the state of the heat exchanger under fault conditions of fouling and heat leakage. Both steady state and transient energy-based residuals are proposed for the purpose of FDD. The results indicate that the use of energy-based residuals seems viable and warrant further investigation.