Application of DTF method in disturbance propagation analysis of complex chemical process

Oscillations usually propagate to other loops with the delivery of mass and energy, then cause plant-wide oscillation and affect the performance of whole control system in complex chemical process. DTF (Directed Transfer Function) method, which has been widely used to analyze information flow in the brain structures in biomedical area, is applied to the disturbance propagation analysis of complex chemical process in this paper. Based on MVAR (Multivariate Autoregressive) model, DTF can analyze the multivariate causality simultaneously and calculate the causality quantitatively. Based on the DTF value, one can draw the causality graph, get the disturbance propagation path and finally locate fault sources. The results of simulation on TEP (Tennessee Eastman Process) are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.