Dynamic Modeling, Sensor Placement Design, and Fault Diagnosis of Nuclear Desalination Systems

Fault diagnosis of sensors, devices, and equipment is an important topic in the nuclear industry for effective and continuous operation of nuclear power plants. All the fault diagnostic approaches depend critically on the sensors that measure important process variables. Whenever a process encounters a fault, the effect of the fault is propagated to some or all the process variables. The ability of the sensor network to detect and isolate failure modes and anomalous conditions is crucial for the effectiveness of a fault detection and isolation (FDI) system. However, the emphasis of most fault diagnostic approaches found in the literature is primarily on the procedures for performing FDI using a given set of sensors. Little attention has been given to actual sensor allocation for achieving the efficient FDI performance. This dissertation presents a graph-based approach that serves as a solution for the optimization of sensor placement to ensure the observability of faults, as well as the fault resolution to a maximum possible extent. This would potentially facilitate an automated sensor allocation procedure. Principal component analysis (PCA), a multivariate data-driven technique, is used to capture the relationships in the data, and to fit a hyper-plane to the data. The fault directions for different fault scenarios are obtained from the prediction errors, and fault isolation is then accomplished using new projections on these fault directions. The effectiveness of the use of an optimal sensor set versus a reduced set for fault detection and isolation is demonstrated using this technique. Among a variety of desalination technologies, the multi-stage flash (MSF) processes contribute substantially to the desalinating capacity in the world. In this dissertation, both steady-state and dynamic simulation models of a MSF desalination plant are developed. The dynamic MSF model is coupled with a previously developed International Reactor Innovative and Secure (IRIS) model in the SIMULINK environment. The developed sensor placement design and fault diagnostic methods are illustrated with application to the coupled nuclear desalination system. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the newly developed integrated approach to performance monitoring and fault diagnosis with optimized sensor placement for large industrial systems

PENENTUAN DAERAH PRIORITAS PROGRAM DAN PREDIKSI SEBARAN KASUS HIV DENGAN METODE FUZZY TOPSIS DAN EXPONENTIAL SMOOTHING

Perencanaan strategis sangat berpengaruh terhadap keberhasilan pelaksanaan suatu program/kegiatan. Perencanaan strategis dapat berupa penentuan prioritas dan peramalan besaran masalah sebagai dasar penetapan langkah strategis baik berupa pengalokasian biaya maupun sumberdaya manusia. Setelah dilaksanakan penghitungan fuzzy TOPSIS dengan alternatif merupakan sembilan belas kecamatan di Kabupaten Semarang dan kriteria keputusan berupa jumlah pengidap HIV serta tiga belas kriteria pendukung lainnya maka diperoleh hasil Kecamatan Bandungan sebagai prioritas pertama. Metode exponential smoothing digunakan untuk memprediksi angka pengidap HIV pada periode 2017 dengan nilai konstanta smoothing (α) sebesar 0,61. Konstanta smoothing terpilih diperoleh dari rata – rata konstanta smoothing yang menghasilkan nilai MSE terkecil pada setiap kecamatan. Penerapan metode fuzzy TOPSIS dan exponential smoothing menjadikan proses perencanaan lebih sederhana dan praktis sehingga meningkatkan optimalitas kebijakan yang diambil. Pengembangan dapat dilakukan dengan perluasan alternatif dan penambahan jumlah kriteria pada penghitungan fuzzy TOPSIS serta penggunaan metode peramalan kausalitas menggantikan metode exponential smoothing dikarenakan penularan HIV bergantung pada beberapa hal baik kuantitatif maupun kualitatif. Kata kunci : fuzzy TOPSIS, exponential smoothing, program HIV, peramalan, pengambilan keputusan, prioritas Strategic planning is very influential on the successful implementation of a program / activity. Strategic planning can be in the form of prioritizing and forecasting the magnitude of the problem as the basis for determining the strategic step either in the allocation of cost and human resources. After the calculation of fuzzy TOPSIS with alternative is nineteen sub districts in Semarang Regency and the decision criteria in the form of the number of people living with HIV and thirteen other supporting criteria then obtained Bandungan District as the first priority. Exponential smoothing method is used to predict the number of people living with HIV in the period 2017 with the value of constant smoothing (α) of 0.61. Selected smoothing constants are obtained from the average Smoothing constants that produce the smallest MSE values in each sub-district. Application of TOPSIS fuzzy and exponential smoothing method makes the planning process simpler and more practical so as to improve the optimality of the policy taken. Development can be done with alternative extensions and addition of number of criteria on TOPSIS fuzzy calculation and use of causal forecasting method to replace exponential smoothing method due to HIV transmission depends on several things both quantitative and qualitative. Keywords: fuzzy TOPSIS, exponential smoothing, strategic planning, HIV programs, forecasting, decision making, prioritie

Methods and Systems for Fault Diagnosis in Nuclear Power Plants

This research mainly deals with fault diagnosis in nuclear power plants (NPP), based on a framework that integrates contributions from fault scope identification, optimal sensor placement, sensor validation, equipment condition monitoring, and diagnostic reasoning based on pattern analysis. The research has a particular focus on applications where data collected from the existing SCADA (supervisory, control, and data acquisition) system is not sufficient for the fault diagnosis system. Specifically, the following methods and systems are developed. A sensor placement model is developed to guide optimal placement of sensors in NPPs. The model includes 1) a method to extract a quantitative fault-sensor incidence matrix for a system; 2) a fault diagnosability criterion based on the degree of singularities of the incidence matrix; and 3) procedures to place additional sensors to meet the diagnosability criterion. Usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated on a nuclear power plant process control test facility (NPCTF). Experimental results show that three pairs of undiagnosable faults can be effectively distinguished with three additional sensors selected by the proposed model. A wireless sensor network (WSN) is designed and a prototype is implemented on the NPCTF. WSN is an effective tool to collect data for fault diagnosis, especially for systems where additional measurements are needed. The WSN has distributed data processing and information fusion for fault diagnosis. Experimental results on the NPCTF show that the WSN system can be used to diagnose all six fault scenarios considered for the system. A fault diagnosis method based on semi-supervised pattern classification is developed which requires significantly fewer training data than is typically required in existing fault diagnosis models. It is a promising tool for applications in NPPs, where it is usually difficult to obtain training data under fault conditions for a conventional fault diagnosis model. The proposed method has successfully diagnosed nine types of faults physically simulated on the NPCTF. For equipment condition monitoring, a modified S-transform (MST) algorithm is developed by using shaping functions, particularly sigmoid functions, to modify the window width of the existing standard S-transform. The MST can achieve superior time-frequency resolution for applications that involves non-stationary multi-modal signals, where classical methods may fail. Effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated using a vibration test system as well as applications to detect a collapsed pipe support in the NPCTF. The experimental results show that by observing changes in time-frequency characteristics of vibration signals, one can effectively detect faults occurred in components of an industrial system. To ensure that a fault diagnosis system does not suffer from erroneous data, a fault detection and isolation (FDI) method based on kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) is extended for sensor validations, where sensor faults are detected and isolated from the reconstruction errors of a KPCA model. The method is validated using measurement data from a physical NPP. The NPCTF is designed and constructed in this research for experimental validations of fault diagnosis methods and systems. Faults can be physically simulated on the NPCTF. In addition, the NPCTF is designed to support systems based on different instrumentation and control technologies such as WSN and distributed control systems. The NPCTF has been successfully utilized to validate the algorithms and WSN system developed in this research. In a real world application, it is seldom the case that one single fault diagnostic scheme can meet all the requirements of a fault diagnostic system in a nuclear power. In fact, the values and performance of the diagnosis system can potentially be enhanced if some of the methods developed in this thesis can be integrated into a suite of diagnostic tools. In such an integrated system, WSN nodes can be used to collect additional data deemed necessary by sensor placement models. These data can be integrated with those from existing SCADA systems for more comprehensive fault diagnosis. An online performance monitoring system monitors the conditions of the equipment and provides key information for the tasks of condition-based maintenance. When a fault is detected, the measured data are subsequently acquired and analyzed by pattern classification models to identify the nature of the fault. By analyzing the symptoms of the fault, root causes of the fault can eventually be identified

Autonomous Control of Nuclear Power Plants

A nuclear reactor is a complex system that requires highly sophisticated controllers to ensure that desired performance and safety can be achieved and maintained during its operations. Higher-demanding operational requirements such as reliability, lower environmental impacts, and improved performance under adverse conditions in nuclear power plants, coupled with the complexity and uncertainty of the models, necessitate the use of an increased level of autonomy in the control methods. In the opinion of many researchers, the tasks involved during nuclear reactor design and operation (e.g., design optimization, transient diagnosis, and core reload optimization) involve important human cognition and decisions that may be more easily achieved with intelligent methods such as expert systems, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms. Many experts in the field of control systems share the idea that a higher degree of autonomy in control of complex systems such as nuclear plants is more easily achievable through the integration of conventional control systems and the intelligent components. Researchers have investigated the feasibility of the integration of fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and expert systems with the conventional control methods to achieve higher degrees of autonomy in different aspects of reactor operations such as reactor startup, shutdown in emergency situations, fault detection and diagnosis, nuclear reactor alarm processing and diagnosis, and reactor load-following operations, to name a few. With the advancement of new technologies and computing power, it is feasible to automate most of the nuclear reactor control and operation, which will result in increased safety and economical benefits. This study surveys current status, practices, and recent advances made towards developing autonomous control systems for nuclear reactors

Nuclear plant diagnostics using neural networks with dynamic input selection

The work presented in this dissertation explores the design and development of a large scale nuclear power plant (NPP) fault diagnostic system based on artificial neural networks (ANNs). The viability of detecting a large number of transients in a NPP using ANNs is demonstrated. A new adviser design is subsequently presented where the diagnostic task is divided into component parts, and each part is solved by an individual ANN. This new design allows the expansion of the diagnostic capabilities of an existing adviser by modifying the existing ANNs and adding new ANNs to the adviser;This dissertation also presents an architecture optimization scheme called the dynamic input selection (DIS) scheme. DIS analyzes the training data for any problem and ranks the available input variables in order of their importance to the input-output relationship. Training is initiated with the most important input and one hidden node. As the network training progresses, input and hidden nodes are added as required until the networks have learned the problem. Any hidden or input nodes that were added during training but are unnecessary for subsequent recall are now removed from the network. The DIS scheme can be applied to any ANN learning paradigm;The DIS scheme is used to train the ANNs that form the NPP fault diagnostic adviser. DIS completely eliminates any guesswork related to architecture selection, thus decreasing the time taken to train each ANN. Each ANN uses only a small subset of the available input variables that is required to solve its particular task. This reduction in the dimensionality of the problem leads to a drastic reduction in training time;Data used in this work was collected during the simulation of transients on the operator training simulator at Duane Arnold Energy Center, a boiling water reactor nuclear power plant. An adviser was developed to detect and classify 30 distinct transients based on the simulation of 47 scenarios at different severities. This adviser was then expanded to detect and classify a total of 36 transients based on the simulation of 58 transient scenarios. The noise tolerant characteristics of the adviser are demonstrated

Degradation Monitoring Using Probabilistic Inference.

In order to increase safety and improve economy and performance in a nuclear power plant (NPP), the source and extent of component degradations should be identified before failures and breakdowns occur. It is also crucial for the next generation of NPPs, which are designed to have a long core life and high fuel burnup to have a degradation monitoring system in order to keep the reactor in a safe state, to meet the designed reactor core lifetime and to optimize the scheduled maintenance. Model-based methods are based on determining the inconsistencies between the actual and expected behavior of the plant, and use these inconsistencies for detection and diagnostics of degradations. By defining degradation as a random abrupt change from the nominal to a constant degraded state of a component, we employed nonlinear filtering techniques based on state/parameter estimation. We utilized a Bayesian recursive estimation formulation in the sequential probabilistic inference framework and constructed a hidden Markov model to represent a general physical system. By addressing the problem of a filter’s inability to estimate an abrupt change, which is called the oblivious filter problem in nonlinear extensions of Kalman filtering, and the sample impoverishment problem in particle filtering, we developed techniques to modify filtering algorithms by utilizing additional data sources to improve the filter’s response to this problem. We utilized a reliability degradation database that can be constructed from plant specific operational experience and test and maintenance reports to generate proposal densities for probable degradation modes. These are used in a multiple hypothesis testing algorithm. We then test samples drawn from these proposal densities with the particle filtering estimates based on the Bayesian recursive estimation formulation with the Metropolis Hastings algorithm, which is a well-known Markov chain Monte Carlo method (MCMC). This multiple hypothesis testing algorithm using MCMC in particle filtering helps the filter to explore the state space more effectively in the direction of the degradations. We extended this algorithm for degradation detection and isolation to complete the degradation monitoring framework. We successfully tested our algorithms in degradation monitoring of balance of plant of a boiling water reactor.Ph.D.Nuclear Engineering & Radiological SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60690/1/balpay_1.pd

Incipient fault detection and isolation of sensors and field devices

The purpose of this research is to develop a robust fault detection and isolation method, for detecting faults in process sensors, actuators, controllers and other field devices. The approach to the solution to this problem is summarized below. A novel approach for the validation of control system components and sensors was developed in this research. The process is composed of detecting a system anomaly, isolating the faulty component (such as sensors, actuators, and controllers), computing its deviation from expected value for a given system\u27s normal condition, and finally reconstructing its output when applicable. A variant of the Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) was developed in this research for generating analytical redundancy from relationships among different system components. A rational function approximation was used for the data-driven modeling scheme. This analytical redundancy is necessary for detecting system anomalies and isolating faulty components. A rule-base expert system was developed in order to isolate the faulty component. The rule-based was established from model-simulated data. A fuzzy-logic estimator was implemented to compute the magnitude of the loop component fault so that the operator or the controller might take corrective actions. This latter engine allows the system to be operated in a normal condition until the next scheduled shutdown, even if a critical component were detected as degrading. The effectiveness of the method developed in this research was demonstrated through simulation and by implementation to an experimental control loop. The test loop consisted of a level control system, flow, pressure, level and temperature measuring sensors, motor-operated valves, and a pump. Commonly observed device faults were imposed in different system components such as pressure transmitters, pumps, and motor-operated valves. This research has resulted in a framework for system component failure detection and isolation, allowing easy implementation of this method in any process control system (power plants, chemical industry, and other manufacturing industry). The technique would also aid the plant personnel in defining the minimal number of sensors to be installed in a process system, necessary for reliable component validation

Condition Monitoring of Sensors in a NPP Using Optimized PCA

An optimized principal component analysis (PCA) framework is proposed to implement condition monitoring for sensors in a nuclear power plant (NPP) in this paper. Compared with the common PCA method in previous research, the PCA method in this paper is optimized at different modeling procedures, including data preprocessing stage, modeling parameter selection stage, and fault detection and isolation stage. Then, the model’s performance is greatly improved through these optimizations. Finally, sensor measurements from a real NPP are used to train the optimized PCA model in order to guarantee the credibility and reliability of the simulation results. Meanwhile, artificial faults are sequentially imposed to sensor measurements to estimate the fault detection and isolation ability of the proposed PCA model. Simulation results show that the optimized PCA model is capable of detecting and isolating the sensors regardless of whether they exhibit major or small failures. Meanwhile, the quantitative evaluation results also indicate that better performance can be obtained in the optimized PCA method compared with the common PCA method

An Intelligent Monitoring Interface for a Coal-Fired Power Plant Boiler Trips

A power plant monitoring system embedded with artificial intelligence can enhance its effectiveness by reducing the time spent in trip analysis and follow up procedures. Experimental results showed that Multilayered perceptron neural network trained with Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm achieved the least mean squared error of 0.0223 with the misclassification rate of 7.435% for the 10 simulated trip prediction. The proposed method can identify abnormality of operational parameters at the confident level of ±6.3%