Towards intelligent automation of power plant design and operations: The role of interactive simulations and distributed expert systems

The design process of a power plant can be viewed as machine- chromosome engineering: When the final layout is implemented, the lifetime operating characteristics, constraints, strengths, and weaknesses of the resulting power-plant-specimen are durably determined. Hence, the safety, operability, maneuverability, availability, maintenance requirements, and costs of a power plant are directly related to the goodness of its electromechanical-genes. This paper addresses the desirability of incorporating distributed computing, distributed object management, and multimedia technologies to power plant engineering, in particular, to design and operations. The promise these technologies have for enhancing the quality and amount of engineering knowledge available, concurrently, online, to plant designers, maintenance crews, and operators is put into perspective. The role that advanced interactive simulations and expert systems will play in the intelligent automation of power plant design and operations is discussed