Partition Weighted Delay-timer for Industrial Alarm Monitoring

Abstract

Alarm systems are to alert operators of abnormal operating conditions and equipment malfunctions, with the intent to avoid property damage and major safety incidents. Delay-timer is a widely used technique in alarm system design, which can effectively improve the accuracy of alarm systems. However, conventional delay-timer has not taken advantage of the information contained in a process variable, so that the delay-timer makes alarm system more insensitive to abnormal condition while improve the accuracy of alarm systems. In order to make use of the full information of a process variable, and improve the performance of industrial alarm systems, this paper proposes a partition weighted delay-timer alarming technique. Simulations and industrial results show that alarm performance can be improved via the proposed technique with a proper choice of partition.