Westinghouse Electric Corporation

Westinghouse Electric Company LLC

James R Easter

Melvin H Lipner

David D Woods

William C Elm

Albert J Impink, Jr

John P Carrera

Craig D Watson

A Dean Mundy

Mary C Eastman

William F Schaefer

Joseph A Rumancik

Kenneth F Cooper

James L Little

George E Butterworth, Iii

An information system for a complex plant which clearly presents to the operator, in parallel as alarms, abnormal process changes which the operator can, at his discretion, manually respond to either to prevent conditions from deteriorating further to the point where automatic protective actuations will be initiated or where automatic protective actuations have not been completed because of a malfunction or were completed but have not been successful. Such alarms are displayed on a dedicated alarm display panel which spatially groups components and subsystems to show appropriate relationships, with the alarm messages shown in the associated area of the display so that possible disturbance propagation can be foreseen. Messages related to uncompleted automatic protective actuations may include a list of faults which prevented completion of those actuations. A separate accomplished action display presents information regarding automatic protective actuations which have been completed together with a confirmation list detailing components and subsystems actuated. The completed automatic protective actuations can be echoed onto the alarm display panel for a limited period of time to alert the operator that the automatic system has responded.

Information system for operating complex plant

A display, a display method and an apparatus are disclosed which produce a summary display depicting function states using discrete state bars centered in one window of a two-window display. The other window on the summary display includes meters for the parameters along the active path of the status tree for the most relevant function as determined by the operator. Each meter indicates not only the current value of the parameter being monitored but the ranges of the different function states as they correspond to the parameter being displayed by the meter. Each meter also carries a data quality indicator. A second level display is provided which depicts the status tree with the active path highlighted allowing the operator to review the decision made by the status tree. The second level display also indicates the values of the parameters used in the decision-making process and includes a miniature version of the summary display that allows the operator to continuously monitor system summary status while reviewing the second level display. A third level display is also provided which depicts detailed information on the sensor values of the parameters being monitored as well as the exact questions being answered by decision trees of the process control monitoring system along with the answers. This third level display also includes a miniature version of the summary status display.

Status tree monitoring and display system

A display, a display method and an apparatus are disclosed which produce a summary display depicting function states using discrete state bars centered in one window of a two-window display. The status bars represent the states of functions in a process as determined by status decision trees. The discrete states are emphasized by reference lines which indicate the state of each function. Priority among functions is indicated by vertically ranking the bars with the most important function bar appearing at the top. Each bar includes the name of the function, the state of the function and a procedure name for a procedure which can be used to solve the problem identified. The discrete function state is also indicated by the width of the bar and the bar color. On both sides of each bar, a data quality indicator can appear when the quality of the data is less than the best. The other window on the summary display includes meters for the parameters along the active path of the status tree for the most relevant function as determined by the operator.

A hybrid parallel/serial alarm management system in which sensor signals are intelligently processed to produce abnormality indication signals. The abnormality indication signals are divided into groups defined by functions of the system being monitored and are used to generate abnormality messages according to goal violation, process disturbance and process unavailability requirements for each function. Within each goal, process and support category the messages are ranked according to a predetermined local priority and chronologically within the same priority. Each function includes a spatially dedicated parallel display location which displays the highest priority portion of each category of messages associated with each function. The messages not displayed on the parallel display are displayed on a serial display unit in ranked order by category within function. Each time message space becomes available on the parallel display unit within a category, the next message with the highest priority within that category moves onto the parallel display.

Alarm management system

The real time actual and reference values of parameters pertinent to the key safety concerns of a pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant are used to generate an integrated graphic display representative of the plant safety status. This display is in the form of a polygon with the distances of the vertices from a common origin determined by the actual value of the selected parameters normalized such that the polygon is regular whenever the actual value of each parameter equals its reference value despite changes in the reference value with operating conditions, and is an irregular polygon which visually indicates deviations from normal otherwise. The values of parameters represented in analog form are dynamically scaled between the reference value and high and low limits which are displayed as tic marks at fixed distances along spokes radiating from the common origin and passing through the vertices. Multiple, related binary signals are displayed on a single spoke by drawing the associated vertice at the reference value when none of the represented conditions exist and at the high limit when any such condition is detected. A regular polygon fixed at the reference values aids the operator in detecting small deviations from normal and in gauging the magnitude of the deviation. One set of parameters is selected for generating the display when the plant is at power and a second set reflecting wide range readings is used the remainder of the time such as following a reactor trip. If the quality of the status, reference or limit signals associated with a particular vertice is 'bad', the sides of the polygon emanating from that vertice are not drawn to appraise the operator of this condition.

Generating an integrated graphic display of the safety status of a

The operation of a nuclear fueled, electric power generating unit is monitored by utilizing decision tree analysis of selected system parameters to generate a representation of the real time system status. Current system status is presented to the operator either in the form of conclusory indications, such as verbal statements, representative of system status, or in the form of a visual display of the entire decision tree including indications of the path through the tree representative of current conditions. In either case, indications of off-normal conditions are accompanied by directions as to appropriate action to be taken, either by the operator or the automatic control system, to steer the system toward more acceptable conditions. In addition, the status indications are prioritized to indicate the seriousness of the off-normal conditions and to direct the sequence of corrective action to be taken when multiple off-normal conditions exist. The decision tree displays are generated either on a color cathode ray tube by a programmed digital computer, or manually on a hard wired panel by an operator who operates switches to illuminate the appropriate branches of the tree based upon meter readings of the selected parameters incorporated into the panel at each branch point. In one embodiment, the invention is applied to monitoring system status when the unit is at power, and in another, it is applied to providing clear, unambiguous indications of the real time status of selected critical safety functions and of appropriate corrective action to be taken, if necessary, following a reactor trip.

Growing community of inventors

Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

James R Easter