A Unified Framework Integrating Knowledge and Data for Collaborative Root Cause Identification

Capturing the root cause and propagation path of the fault is critical to ensuring the safety and efficiency of industrial processes, especially those that inadequately utilize process knowledge and data. To address this issue, a unified framework integrating knowledge and data for collaborative root cause identification is proposed. First, the knowledge causal graph (KCG) is constructed using expert knowledge and industrial flow charts, providing a preliminary reference for subsequent causality analysis. Next, by replacing the traditional vector autoregression (VAR) model in Granger Causality (GC) with the gated recurrent unit (GRU), a more reliable causal relationship between variables is obtained. Additionally, a causality fusion propagation path identification method (CF-PPI) is designed to identify the root cause and propagation path of the fault, so that the obtained fault propagation path has less redundancy and higher accuracy. Finally, the method is validated using data from the ASHRAE RP-1043 centrifugal chiller.