Chemical process facilities have posed an attractive target to terrorism, and if attacked, catastrophies ,such as explosions, toxic release, and loss of life will occur. The impacts of the released chemicals on the environment is very deep. Recent development of Information Technology(IT) shows strong potential in providing solutions to effectively address the security issues in chemical plants. How to creatively integrate IT in the context of chemical plant security is of paramount importance for the further development. IT-based fast and accurate decision making methods must be developed as well as the security enhancement in the CPI being advanced from the infrastructure level to production level.

Based on these issues at hand, my research will consist of the development of a fast and accurate Process Security Enhancement(PSE) tool using advanced computing methods. I anticipate developing : (i) a plant-wide dynamic security-bearing computer modeling method, (ii) a fast data analysis and information classification method for anomaly detection, (iii) an effective hierarchical decision-making method, and (iv) a prototype system to demonstrate the effectiveness of the PSE methodology. In order to demonstrate how these adverse impacts can be effectively detected, deterred, delayed and/or eliminated, I plan on studying a few industrial problems, such as security sensitive reaction processes. This research will also comprise four unique features :(i) science driven rather than experience based, (ii) methodological innovation, (iii) computational efficiency and accuracy, and (iv) general rather than problem specific.