Fault detection for chemical processes based on non-stationarity sensitive cointegration analysis

Abstract

Due to the time-varying operation conditions, chemical processes are characterized by non-stationary characteristics, which makes it a great challenge for conventional process monitoring methods to capture the non-stationary variations In the non-stationary processes, the abnormality would cause the stationary variables to be non-stationary. In this article, a non-stationarity sensitive cointegration analysis monitoring method is proposed to explore potential non-stationary variations. First, the essential non-stationary variables are distinguished using Augmented Dickey–Fuller test to eliminate the influence of essential non-stationary under normal conditions. Then by further analyzing the faulty data, the variables which are sensitive to the non-stationary variations are selected. On this basis, cointegration analysis models are established for both the essential non-stationary variables and non-stationarity sensitive variables to explore long-term dynamic equilibrium relationship, respectively. With the selection of non-stationarity sensitive variables, the potential faulty information is emphasized in the process monitoring model, which makes the model capable to handle the non-stationary variations. Finally, the monitoring results are combined through Bayesian inference criterion. The proposed method is applied on the Tennessee Eastman process and a vinyl acetate monomer plant model, and the feasibility and performance are demonstrated.