Patent Number: 059998946
Section: summary

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The invention relates to a method for the analysis of process data of an industrial plant, in particular of a power station plant, the parts of which plant are automatically controlled. In a control room for controlling an industrial plant, in particular a power station plant, large quantities of various measurement data occur continuously and in their entirety describe a plant state or operating state. The operating personnel of the plant have the task of identifying the measurement data or measurement variables that are respectively relevant to the operating state as well as the task of following, analyzing and interpreting their values in relation to the state of the plant. At the same time, the guidance of the process from the control room is largely determined through screens by way of standards and guidelines in the form of regulations. Those regulations include symbols for parts of the plant or elements of the plant such as, for example, pumps and valves, the coloring of indicators and the construction of the indicators of a control system. In addition to the various indicators, there is commonly a plant diagram which represents the entire plant in overview. However, with increasing automation and complexity of such an industrial plant, the number of measurement data that are recorded also increases, and therefore the probability that information important to the respective operating state of the plant is not identified as such in good time. Corresponding counter measures can thus only be belatedly initiated. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a method for the analysis of process data of an industrial plant, in particular of a power station plant, which overcomes the hereinafore-mentioned disadvantages of the heretofore-known methods of this general type, with which special features in a plant process are indicated directly and with which it is possible to take counter measures in good time, in particular in the case of disturbances. With the foregoing and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention, a method for the analysis of process data of an industrial plant, in particular a power station plant, having automatically controlled plant parts, which comprises prescribing features characterizing a plant process and providing parameters relevant to the plant process; checking the presence of each feature for each plant part using the parameters; determining correlations between combinations of plant parts or features, respectively, using features common to various plant parts and plant parts common to various features; and representing the plant parts and/or the features as information elements positioned in relation to one another, for representing a degree of correlation of two of the information elements in each case by a distance between the two information elements. In this configuration, the invention proceeds from the consideration that, on the basis of the mathematical model of formal concept analysis, large quantities of process data can be filtered, compressed and/or structured in accordance with the principle that "contextual proximity corresponds to spatial proximity" in relation to their significance for the plant state. The fundamentals of formal concept analysis are, for example, summarized in publications M. Luxemburger entitled: "Implikationen, Abhangigkeiten und Galois-Abbildungen. Beitrage zur formalen Begriffsanalyse" [Implications, Dependencies and Galois Mapping. Contributions to Formal Concept Analysis], Dissertation, TH Darmstadt (1993) and Proc. NATO Adv. Study Inst., Banff, Canada 1981, pages 445-470 (1982), as well as a publication by G. Kalmbach entitled: "Diskrete Mathematik. Ein Intensivkurs fur Studienanfanger mit Turbo-Pascal-Programmen" [Discrete Mathematics. An Intensive Course for Beginners, with Turbo-Pascal Programs] (1981). A list of features is provided from the information system of the industrial plant, which is part of the operating system of the plant. The features as a whole describe all of the possible operating states or plant states. The features themselves are, for example, status messages or other messages which describe the state of a part of the plant uniquely and which, for their part, can be members of series of messages. The assignment of the features to the parts of the plant is carried out by using parameters that are currently recorded or modeled (simulated) and which are likewise provided by the information system of the industrial plant. The contextual proximity or the proximity in terms of content of two parts of the plant in each case is then determined by the relationship of the number of the features which are common to them to the number of those features that are exhibited by at least one of the parts of the plant. In other words: in each case two parts of the plant which agree in all features are classified as particularly close in terms of content, whereas two parts of the plant which agree in none of the features are classified as not close in terms of content. In order to provide the graphical representation, the proximity in terms of content of two parts of the plant is transformed into a spatial proximity of information elements representing the parts of the plant. The spatial proximity of two features in each case is determined in an analogous manner, with use being made of the number of those parts of the plant which exhibit these features in common. The assignment of features to each part of the plant exhibiting them, using the parameters, uniquely determines the correlation or the relationship between these features and this part of the plant. In accordance with another mode of the invention, the parameters provided by the information system of the industrial plant are a component part of event messages which characterize changes of operating states or deviations from the normal state of the plant. In this case, the event messages are uniquely assigned to the corresponding parts of the plant using specific identifiers. The graphical representation which is generated can be merely a configuration of information elements representing parts of the plant or merely a configuration of information elements representing features. Preferably, however, information elements both of parts of the plant and of features are represented graphically. In accordance with a further mode of the invention, the positioning of the information elements in relation to one another within the configuration is determined in such a manner that the following criterion is fulfilled: if a part of the plant exhibits a feature, the distance of its information elements in relation to one another is smaller than a prescribable first limiting value. If a part of the plant does not exhibit a feature, the distance between its information elements is greater than a prescribable second limiting value. In order to enable the information which is important for an identification of the respective plant state to be provided to the operating personnel in a particularly simple and/or clear manner, the measurement data picked up within the plant process or parameters derived therefrom are filtered. In accordance with an added mode of the invention, a determination as to which of the parts of the plant are represented is made on the basis of a prescribed criterion. For example, those parts of the plant can be represented which agree in one feature such as, for example, in the state "disturbance"/"no disturbance", or in the status ON/OFF. In accordance with an additional mode of the invention, a time window is prescribed as a criterion, so that relationships or interactions can be detected between those parts of the plant which report disturbances within a specific time interval. As a result, conclusions can be drawn regarding causative disturbances, in contrast to symptomatic disturbances. In accordance with yet another mode of the invention, in order to be able to detect a development trend in the direction of a disturbance in good time, a time window can also be prescribed as feature. In this way, a time-based ordering of the information elements representing the parts of the plant and features is possible. In accordance with yet a further mode of the invention, information elements of successive event messages are represented together as a state complex. The state complex in this case can have a characteristic structure, the pattern of which has a direct relationship with a system behavior. In accordance with yet an added mode of the invention, in this case a system state is forecast from the common representation of the information elements. In this way it is possible to already counteract an incipient disturbance in a suitable manner during the initial stage. In accordance with yet an additional mode of the invention, the state complex is compared with a reference complex derived from plant-specific knowledge. Patterns which are characteristic of a specific plant behavior are then prescribed in this reference complex. For example, a disturbance proceeding from a rapid closure of a safety valve in a power station plant can be provided in the form of a reference complex. Comparing the state complex with this reference complex therefore permits an on-line incipient rapid closure to be detected on the basis of the disturbance messages proceeding therefrom. The information space in which the information elements are represented is n-dimensional and preferably 3-dimensional. In accordance with a concomitant mode of the invention, three spatial coordinates are determined in order to fix the position of each information element in this information space. A 3-dimensional representation is thus possible on a suitable display device, for example on a monitor screen, in the control room. Other features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims. Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in a method for the analysis of process data of an industrial plant, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims. The construction and method of operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.