The present invention relates to fluid conduction and fluid systems, more particularly to monitoring and controlling (regulating) fluid systems to detect and respond to failures such as pipe ruptures in the fluid systems.
The United States Navy has developed electrically actuated valves and computer programming algorithms for effecting piping rupture detection. According to this Navy-developed technology, a “smart valve” measures differential fluid pressure across a valve in order to detect a pipe rupture. The Navy is implementing this pressure-based smart valve technology in the DDG-1000 and CG(X) classes of ships as part of a fire damage control system. See Donald D. Dalessandro and Leslie Spaulding, “Autonomic Fire Suppression System,”Seaframe, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2008, hereby incorporated herein by reference. See also, Lestina et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,535,827 B1, issue date 18 Mar. 2003, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Detecting and Isolating a Rupture in Fluid Distribution System,” hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Many ships use fluid systems to cool engines and other machinery. Cooling systems are also prevalent in industry. The Navy's traditional approach to monitoring and damage control of shipboard cooling systems (e.g., chilled water systems) has involved manual operation by ship personnel. During normal operations, the engineering department of the ship monitors cooling system thermal load level, and aligns the fluid system using local manual or manual remote actuated valves to predetermined configurations developed during the cooling system design. Damage control is performed manually either locally or from a remote control station.
Thus, customarily it is incumbent upon a ship's crew to perform thermal balancing of the cooling system following a breakdown or mishap in the cooling system. However, there are drawbacks to this human intervention-based strategy. Cooling system damage scenarios may demand significant time and commitment from ship personnel, and may pose extreme dangers to the personnel. Furthermore, the personnel may be limited in their ability to realign a damaged cooling system so that cooling remains available to mission-critical equipment.