Increasing process safety using analytical redundancy

The paper integrates demands for safe processing and fault detection techniques. An early detection of the fault occurrence is vitally important since it contributes to avoidance of product deterioration, performance degradation, major damages to the machinery itself and damages to human health or even loss of lives. Some fault detection methods using analytical redundancy are described and principles are outlined of some most important techniques of model-based residual generation using parameter estimation, parity space and state estimation approaches. As the real systems are usually non-linear, a non-linear state estimation observer is described. A water vessel of a heat exchanger was chosen for the experiment. Although there was no water level sensor installed in it, the leakage of the vessel was successfully detected using a non-linear observer.