Symbolic Determination of Redundant Measurements for Plant Instrumentation Design

SEBASTIÁN J. FERRARO; IGNACIO PONZONI; MABEL C. SÁNCHEZ; NÉLIDA B. BRIGNOLE

Santa Fe, Argentina

Congreso; ENPROMER 2001, III Congreso de Ingeniería de Procesos del Mercosur; 2001

Redundancy analysis is a crucial stage in plant instrumentation design that consists in classifying the measurements so as to determine the redundant ones. For problems represented through non-linear systems of equations, the method usually employed to carry out the classification of measured variables is based on the linearization of the model equations, which implies a potential loss of accuracy for problems that involve strong nonlinearities. In this work we propose a new alternative method based on a symbolic approach that works directly on the original model equations. The performance was tested satisfactorily for two industrial case studies.