A fouling test system was set up to measure water quality parameters of natural cooling water circulation from Songhua river

such as iron ions

chloride ions

total bacteria

pH

dissolved oxygen

turbidity and electric conductivity at different time

flow rates and water temperatures.A partial least squares regression(PLS)model was built

with a set of data measured as the input variables

to predict the fouling characteristics of the plate heat exchanger

which are iron ions

chloride ions

total bacteria

pH

dissolved oxygen

turbidity

conductivity

etc.The input water quality parameters were selected randomly.In the experiment

the hot water inlet temperature was between 43.5℃ and 44.5℃

cooling water inlet temperature was between 21.5℃ and 22.5℃

and water velocity was 0.104 m·s-1.The calculation shows that the PLS model contains four latent variables.Compared with the experimental results

the maximal relative error of the model was in 5.11%.The partial leastsquare regression algorithm of fouling model is reasonable and feasible.