The paper reviews current research work in the field of process condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. The review compares and contrasts the applicability and efficiency of different techniques, and concentrates on methods which monitor the main process variables. From the wide range of methods and process variables, temperature, flowrate and liquid level are used here in comparing the limitations and applications of each method. The scope of the paper ranges from basic, well established techniques to the latest reported monitoring strategies for each of the process variables.
Furthermore, the different methods of fault diagnosis deemed to be relevant in process plant are reviewed. The detection of the internal leakage in the control valves and motor faults are discussed in detail, as examples of the monitoring of vital process plant components.
The paper then outlines areas of future work, such as the development of a user friendly interface. This interface is based on state transition diagrams (STDs) as well as on the use of a knowledge based system (KBS) to model and diagnose faults in vital process plant components such as control valves.
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