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Knowledge based diagnostic advisory system and method for an air separation plant

  • US 5,557,549 A
  • Filed: 03/28/1995
  • Issued: 09/17/1996
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/28/1992
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A diagnostic advisory system for troubleshooting an abnormal condition in the production of at least one gas in an air separation plant identified by one or more alarm or shutdown signals triggered by a different fault condition affecting the normal production of said at least one gas with said diagnostic advisory system comprising:

  • a programmed computer including memory means for storing a knowledge base of an air separation plant composed of a hierarchy of knowledge elements containing textual, graphical and/or video material for providing advice and guidance to an operator to enable the operator to monitor and to determine the cause of a fault condition of at least one gas and what action to take to correct such fault with the knowledge elements arranged in a sequence having an ordered priority corresponding to different levels of information with the highest priority knowledge element for the identified fault condition providing a preset number of diagnostic strategies with each strategy incorporating one or more subordinate knowledge elements in ranked order to the higher knowledge elements and to one another in accordance with the priority given to each level of information;

    means for interactively linking subordinate knowledge element(s) to their higher priority knowledge element(s);

    means responsive to a fault indicating signal for displaying each of said knowledge elements with each subordinate knowledge element displayed in a cascade formation relative to all higher ranking knowledge elements to which it is linked for said fault indicated signal; and

    means for successively displaying one or more lower ranking knowledge elements within the linkage chain of knowledge elements to indicate what remedial action should be taken to correct the fault condition; and

    means for returning to any higher knowledge element from which the displayed lower knowledge element depends.

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