An Expert System for Alarm Diagnosis and Filtering

This paper describes an alarm processing system being developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for implementation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor. The purpose of the system is to perform two related functions, alarm diagnosis and filtering, to aid nuclear plant operators in responding to the large number of alarms typically activated during a major plant transient. The alarm diagnostician determines the root cause of a pattern or sequence of alarms and generates an explanation of the events leading to the alarm sequence. The alarm filter identifies and deemphasize those alarms which are either irrelevant to the current plant condition or contribute no significant new information.