Patent Number: 059303158
Section: summary

FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates generally to the management and control of an operating system carrying out a nuclear, chemical or other process and is particularly directed to the detection and identification of a faulty component in an operating system and the analysis and determination of optimum response to manage of the system following failure of a system component. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Complex engineering systems such as nuclear power plants are often subjected to off-normal situations that arise from component malfunctions, operational transients or external events. As system complexity increases, the demands on plant operators for fast, accurate responses to these events also increase, to the point where a computer-based advisory system to supplement operator training is highly desirable. Operation of these systems, especially those with the potential for severe consequences in the event of an off-normal occurrence, requires the assimilation and processing of large amounts of data from system monitoring equipment. Installations such as power plants, chemical processing plants and fuel fabrication plants can all benefit from the application of computer-based expert systems to provide input to the operators as an aid in the diagnosis of plant faults and transient recovery. Such a system could extend the expertise of the operators to situations beyond their training envelope and provide rapid assistance during low-probability events requiring an extended time for the operators to diagnose and develop a response. Research and development efforts in the area of operator-assistance systems for the diagnosis and management of plant transients, especially in nuclear power plants, have been in progress for many years, with various approaches and varying degrees of success. Typical systems are based on signal pattern recognition and simulator engines, or expert systems, that incorporate automated reasoning and neural network algorithms. It is highly probable that as the availability of low-cost, high-performance computers increases, operator advisory systems will be a standard feature of future generation plants. The systems will be used to aid in the diagnosis of component failures or off-normal events, as well as in the management of the plant transients that often follow such events. Prior expert system approaches are limited to the use of predetermined sets of malfunction and associated operator actions which do not account for unanticipated malfunctions. Examples of this type of process fault diagnosis in control systems can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,265,035 and 5,442,555, assigned to the assignee of the present application. The disclosures of these two patents are hereby incorporated by reference in the present application. The present invention takes into account both anticipated and unanticipated system component malfunctions to provide realignment procedures and operator actions at on-line speeds to allow the system to be either safely shut down or to continue operation at full or partial capacity. OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF INVENTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to automatically determine the optimum recovery actions and configuration state of an operating system following a component malfunction in the system. It is another object of the present invention to provide rapid on-line process management of an operating system following the malfunction of a component within the system by selecting new system operating configurations to maintain system operation at full, or partial, capacity, or to safely shut down the system. A further object of the present invention is to take into account anticipated as well as unanticipated component malfunctions in an operating system to allow the system to be realigned or reconfigured so as to, for example, by-pass or isolate the malfunctioning component at on-line speeds so that the system may be safely shut down or may be allowed to continue operation at full or partial capacity. A still further object of the present invention is to provide a process management system which can be applied to virtually any type of operating plant, such as of the nuclear, chemical or fuel fabrication type, without the need for major revisions of the system's computer code or the associated requirements for verification and validation of a modified code. Specific plant operating parameters and configurations are contained in a separate module that is linked to the main body of the code. This invention contemplates a method for managing the operation of a system having a plurality of components following a malfunction of a component, wherein each component is assigned a thermal-hydraulic function in terms of mass, momentum or energy, the method comprising the steps of: assigning each component to a loop in the system, wherein each component in a given loop is connected to the other components in the given loop and each loop has a characteristic set of thermal-hydraulic parameters and each component be a set of thermal-hydraulic component characteristics; identifying a first malfunctioning component in a first loop and classifying the malfunction in terms of a mass, momentum or energy thermal hydraulic function; searching the loops for components connected to said first malfunctioning component; searching the first loop for a second component of the loop of the same thermal-hydraulic function type as the first malfunctioning component; generating a first modified loop structure wherein the second component having the same thermal-hydraulic function type as the malfunctioning component replaces the first malfunctioning component; calculating and comparing thermal-hydraulic parameters of the first modified loop incorporating the second component with the thermal-hydraulic parameters of the loop incorporating the first component prior to the malfunction; and reconfiguring the system to include the second component in the first modified loop if the thermal-hydraulic parameters of the modified loop and the loop incorporating the first component prior to the malfunction match; or generating a second modified loop structure incorporating a third component having the same thermal-hydraulic function type as the malfunctioning component for replacing the first malfunctioning component if the thermal hydraulic parameters of the first loop and of the first modified loop do not match; calculating and comparing thermal-hydraulic parameters of the second modified loop structure incorporating the third component with the thermal-hydraulic parameters of the loop incorporating the first component prior to the malfunction; and reconfiguring the system to include the third component in the second modified loop structure if the thermal-hydraulic parameters of the second modified loop match the thermal-hydraulic parameters of the first loop. This loop construction procedure is repeated until all possible loops with parameters matching the failed loop have been constructed and their replacement potential analyzed.