Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol.99, No.2, 530-542, 2021
An ontology-based procedure knowledge framework for the process industry
Process industry enterprises rely heavily on expert experience in production, and expert knowledge is stored in multiple formats like, pictures, texts, videos, etc. Several isolated islands of information or knowledge are formed, and they are difficult to store, share, and expand upon. Therefore, the same procedure appears multiple times in different application scenarios, such as optimization scheduling, optimization operation, or fault diagnosis. If redundant knowledge is paid too much attention, decision-makers will not be able to comprehensively consider business knowledge. Thus, a novel framework is proposed for the process industry to manage procedure knowledge. This paper first divides the detailed procedure of process plants into four layers, that is, raw materials, intermediate materials, operation, and products based on the P-graph theory, which involves virtual hierarchies, nodes, and operations. Second, the domain ontology-based procedure knowledge model is constructed. Finally, two experimental cases, the Tennessee Eastman (TE) and the ethylene production process, are studied to verify the procedure knowledge framework (PKF). The PKF provides a useful foundation for the subsequent construction of a superstructure model based on the P-graph theory and is different from the previous industrial process industrial ontology model. The PKF has a theoretical basis for simulation calculation and makes future work based on PKF more accurate and interpretable.