Data Analysis for Early Fault Detection On-line monitoring approach for heat exchanger in solar-thermal plant

Abstract

Nowadays, the reliability and robustness levels required for production systems are growing. These demands make philosophies, such as predictive maintenance essential in modern industry, among which the energy sector stands out. In this sense, this paper proposes an on-line monitoring system based on data mining models, which provides a useful tool to identify operation anomalies easily, being able to identify and prevent possible future failures. This approach has been applied successfully in a real case, where a performance analysis for the cooling systems of a solar-thermal power plant was implemented.