Fouling detection in heat exchanger using a bilinear model-based parameter estimation method

In this paper, a bilinear model-based parameter estimation method is presented for detecting fouling of heat exchangers. An MIMO recursive least-squares estimator with forgetting factor is utilized to identify the model parameters which are related to the immeasurable heat transfer coefficients. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can detect fouling occurred in heat exchangers at early stage.