(135c) Gary's Contributions on Safety Research, Part II

This session is in honor of Professor Gary Powers. Professor Powers was active in research centered on design and systems analysis. His work specifically concentrated on process synthesis, risk and reliability, and engineering education techniques.

Process Synthesis
The synthesis of operating procedures for continuous and batch processing facilities is an important task in plant design. Dr. Powers' work in computer programs tested such models and assisted designers in generating high-integrity procedures and flowsheets. Island-driven hierarchical planning was combined with functional models to unify synthesis of the procedures and flowsheet.  

Chemical Process Risk and Reliability Assessment
Dr. Powers developed a strategy to assess process hazards and diagnose faults using real-time data using fault trees and digraph models to develop causal and probabilistic relationships between sensed variables annd process hazards.

Powers was also active in the development of a theory for the verification of real-time control systems by combining chemical engineering process models with software engineering techniques. Symbolic verification tests were developed for stages in the control system that range from the initial specification of the user's requirements to final control code and hardware.