Detecting network faults

In the middle of the night the backup generator stands still. Is the fuel out? Has a pipe burst? Or is there simply too much on the grid? A good fault reporter tells you before you go searching outside.

NetworkFault: the burst pipe#

NetworkFault only exists on the pipe analyzers (StructurePipeAnalysizer for gas, StructureLiquidPipeAnalyzer for liquid). The value is 1 while a pipe has burst and is leaking in the analyzer's pipe network, otherwise 0. There is no such LogicType for a power grid.

Why does this belong in the energy week? Because a gas generator hangs on its fuel line. If a pipe bursts there, the generator stops – and the fault lies in the pipe network, not in the power grid.

lbn burst PIPE HASH("Brennstoff") NetworkFault Average

Failure patterns in the power grid#

You recognise power faults by patterns made of several values:

The last pattern is the trickiest: a cable fire cuts power and data. Everything behind the burn spot disappears for the chip.

One number instead of many lights#

Instead of five warning lights, one display shows a fault number. The chip checks from unimportant to important, every hit overwrites the previous one:

select code tmp F_GEN code
select code tmp F_GRID code
select code burst F_PIPE code

That way the most important fault always wins. The missing devices come last and take priority. One trick checks all readings at once: add them up – if one is NaN, the sum is NaN.

Put a table of the numbers next to the display. “Fault 3” then immediately means: take the welder, walk the fuel line.