Actuator and Sensor Fault Detection and Isolation System Applied to a Distillation Column

This article presents the results of the simulation of a binary distillation column for which a composition controller and fault detection and isolation strategy was applied. In the simulation study, a distillation column comprising nine trays was adopted. A nonlinear feedback composition controller was designed to track the composition in tray 2 and tray 9 of this distillation column. The actuator and sensor fault detection and isolation system were developed by using a linear sliding mode observer. Fault detection was achieved by comparing the fault estimation signal to a predefined threshold. Fault isolation was achieved by analyzing the maximum value of fault estimation signals and a proposed isolation logic. The control and the fault detection and isolation system were tested via simulation to illustrate the effectiveness of the scheme. The results show that the algorithms provide good performance for the composition control of the process and for actuator and sensor fault detection and isolation.