RELIABILITY APPLICATION

IN ELECTRIC POWER
SYSTEMS

Prof.Dr.Aydoğan ÖZDEMİR

September 2013
 I. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background

In a modern society, engineers are responsible for the planning, design, manufacture and
operation of products and systems ranging from simple products to complex systems. The
failure of these products or systems can often cause several effects as inconveniences,
irritation and severe impact on society. Users, customers or society in general expects that
products and systems are reliable and safe. Here the question is:

How reliable or how safe will the product (system) be during its future life?

This Question can be answered by the use of quantitative reliability evaluation.

The Development of reliability evaluation techniques was initially started with the aerospace
industry and military applications. These developments were later followed rapidly by
applications in the nuclear industry, in the electricity supply and in continuous process plants
such as steel plants and chemical plants. All of these applications have suffered severe
problems in recent times: Challenger Space shuttle accident, several commercial aircraft
accidents, three mile island accident, Chernobyl Accident, New York blackout, Bhopal
process plant accident. These were important events resulting in severe social and
environment consequences and deaths.

Those problems have considerably increased pressure to objectively assess reliability, safety
and risk assessment. Society generally can not distinguish the terms hazard and risk. Hazard
is a failure and can be ranked in terms of its severity but does not take into account its
likelihood. However risk not only accounts a hazardous event but also for its likelihood.
Reliability evaluation techniques help to account both the severity of a failure and the
likelihood of occurance of a failure.

Modern reliability evaluation techniques in a wide range of applications including domestic

appliances, automobiles, local area network and several other products and systems that
individually have little socioeconomic impacts when they fail. Resent trends in developed
countries are increasing the need to conduct risk and reliability assesments. Most of the
manufacturing companies and utilities pay more attention on the reliability issues.

1.2 Importance of Reliability

Users, customers or society in general have been looking for reliability and sustainability for
the products and the systems. Although the reliability is an important concept for several types
of applications, its measurement and evaluation is not so easy. For example, it is not easy to
quantify the difference between a reliable person and an unreliable person. The difference can
only be stated as a relative measure.

Reliability can be defined as “the measure of fulfilling a task” in a social life. For example a
person always telling the truth can be assigned as a reliable person from the point of true
talking and a person always performing the duties on time can be assigned as a reliable person
from the point of task scheduling. However, those qualifications are not valid all the time. For
example a person who is known to be a true-talking one may lie at a time. However, the
probability of his true talking is high.

In our modern social life, engineers are responsible to design, manufacture and operate several
types of products and systems. On the other hand, costumers expect reliable products and
systems. They evaluate the reliability of those products and systems on a comparative sense.
That is no numerical measures of the reliability and crisp evaluations as “reliable” and
“unreliable” are not so meaningful. However, we need to answer the question "how reliable?"
and evaluate the items on an absolute evaluation basis. This question can be replied by the
numerical values between 0 and 1 (or 0 and 100 %) and it is the main task of this course
together with the cost of reliability.

An engineer is not only concerned with the answer of the question “how reliable” but also
concerned with the relation between the cost and the reliability. It is obvious that the higher
reliability brings higher costs. Therefore, engineers are concerned with the reasonable
(satisfactory) reliability instead the highest reliability. The measure of satisfactoriness depends
on the application.

Example: It is known that the defect rate of a certain production is 1 % and the company
guarantees to replace the defect products. Assume that the cost of a production is
100 TL. Calculate the profit of the company from a single product if it is sold to
150 TL. An improved manufacture with a defect rate of 0.1% costs 100.5 TL.
Calculate the profit for the same selling price.

The cost of 100 product = 100 x 100 = 10 000 TL

99 of 100 products are sold = 99 x 150 = 14 850 TL
Profit = 4850 TL  48.5 TL/product
For a 0.1% defect rate

The cost of 1000 product = 1000 x 100.5 = 100 500 TL

999 of 1000 products are sold = 999 x 150 = 149 850 TL
Profit = 49350 TL  49.35 TL/product

This example states that higher reliability brings higher costs. However, final profit (or some
other measure) can also be higher.

Reliability was intuitively with respect to personal experiences. However, it has became an
important scientific task of several engineering applications as well as several other
applications. Several indices are defined to measure the reliability of the products and
systems. The costs of failures are evaluated together with the reliability evaluations. In
addition, mathematical tools are also developed to understand the failure mechanisms of
complex systems. On the other hand, design costs are being thought together with the
reliability of the final products/systems and a fair trade off between the reliability and the
production economy is aimed.

1.3 Historical Development

Starting from the production of initial tool, human beings have begun to think about the
strength and the safety of the products. However, more reliable products and the systems
have only been developed qualitatively with respect to experience gained from the past
hazards up to the Second World War. The first quantitative reliability studies began in 1940s
with the missile and military aircraft applications. Von Braun and his team stated the first
result of their reliability studies as:

"A chain cannot be stronger than its weakest point”

This was also the first technical result stating the relation between a system and its
component. They have tried to improve the reliability of the system by improving the quality
of the “weakest point”. However, they have later realized that this fact was not the only fact
governing the system reliability. On the other hand, General Motors have succeeded to
increase the useful life of locomotive engine from 250.000 miles to 1.000.000 miles. On the
other hand, military aircraft engines were so designed not to fail before 100000 hours of
flight. This can be assigned as the first reliability criteria.

Reliability applications in electric power distribution systems started during 1950s and
applications were later concentrated on military electronics industry. Advisory Group on
Reliability of Electronic Equipment (AGREE) constructed in USA national defense
ministry was the first important association. This organization realized that the maintenance
costs of an electronic product whose initial production cost was 1 USD found to be 2 USD.
This fact resulted in designing improved electronic units which would require less
maintenance costs. This was also brought the idea of thinking the reliability as a part of design
process. First reliability evaluations in communications were also started during this period.

Reliability studies in 1960s were concentrated on the development of mathematical methods

for reliability assessment. Those methods aimed to construct the relation between the
component failures and the system failures. Aeronautical and aerospace applications were
later followed by the applications in nuclear weapon industry, missile technology,
communication systems, nuclear power plants and electric power systems. On the other hand,
the first reliability standards were also published.

System reliability analysis methods developed up to 1970s were applied to nuclear power
plants and the results of several failure scenarios were analyzed. However, the occurrence of 3
mile island accident brought the necessity of revising all the scenarios developed so far.
Reliability assessment were performed for several applications including petro-chemical and
automotive industry, railway transportation systems. Several attempts were done to publish
new reliability standards. On the other hand, the importance of past failure data was
recognized and companies started to collect failure data.

In 1980s, reliability analysis was applied to semiconductor electronics and software industry.

1.4 Component and System Concepts

Reliability analyses are conducted for the units which can individually be modeled and tested.
Those units can either be a part of a component, a component, a sub-system, a basic system or
a system. That is units are the arbitrary elements in the following chain.

(Part) (Component)  (Sub - system)  (Basic System)  (System)

For a nuclear power plant example,
 plant is a system,
 control system is a basic-system in the system,
 heat control system is the sub-system of the control system,
 a relay is a component of the sub-system and
 contact is the relay is the part of the component

1.5 Types of Systems

Reliability evaluation techniques have been developed and are being applied in a wide range
of engineering disiplines. In fact, reliability evaluation is an interdisciplinary area and the
methods can be used in a number of applications, for example, electrical, mechanical,
chemical, computer, civil. It should be noted, however, that there is not a single method that
can be used for all types of problems.

Systems can be divided into the following groups from technological point of view..
 Electrical, electronic or control systems,
 Thermal systems
 Hydraulic systems,
 Pneumatic systems,
 Mechanical systems,
 Information systems etc

Systems can be classified into two groups from the reliability point of view: namely, mission
oriented systems and continously operating systems.

Mission oriented system Mission oriented system

with no idle phase with idle phase

Operating Operating
Iddle

t t
Failed Failed
tM tf tI tM tf

Continuosly operating system

Operating

Failed t
Mission oriented systems are expected to operate without any failure up to their mission time.
Note that individual component failures are permissible provided that they don’t yield to a
system failure. Flight of an aircraft can be thought as an mission-oriented system example.
They may either have an idle phase or not. Continuously operating systems in an operation-
failure-operation-failure.. cycle. Electric power systems are typical continuously operating
system examples.

1.6 Reliability and Reliability Indices

Several indices representing the measures of reliability are defined and some of these indices
are later calculated for quantitative reliability analysis. All the measures of the reliability
quantify the future behavior of the units. This intended future depends on the application. It
can be some seconds as in a missile example or can be some ten years as in electric power
systems.

It is obvious that the behavior in the future is probabilistic and it can only be held by
probabilistic methods. On the other hand, reliability indices and analysis depends on the
applications, operating conditions, failure types etc. Therefore, reliability analysis can be
performed by the engineers equipped with probabilistic methods.

Reliability is the probability of a unit performing its purpose adequately for the period of the
time intended under the operating conditions encountered. This definition has four important
parts

 Probability,
 Adequate performance
 Intended time,
 Operating conditions.

The first part states that future performance of the unit is not deterministic and therefore
reliability studies can be performed by statistical methods. The remaining three parts are
engineering parameters. For example operating conditions can be normal or severe, adequacy
depends on several different aspects and intended time depends on the application. If we
combine those four basic parts we can easily conclude that the reliability studies can be
performed by the engineers equipped with probability science.

On the other hand, reliability definition is suitable for quantifying the adequacy mission
oriented systems. Although reliability is also valid for continuously operating systems,
another probability named as availability is better to quantify these systems. Adequacy is the
probability of a unit being in the operating state at some time into the future.

Both the reliability and the availability are the basic probabilities used in reliability analysis.
On the other hand, in most quantitative reliability assessment several additional reliability
indices are used.
- Mean Time to Failure (mean operating time), MTTF
- Mean time to repair (mean repair time), MTTR
- Mean time between failures, MTBF
- Failure frequency (number of failures in a unit time),
- Cost of reliability
are the most popular indices. There are some additional indices for several different types of
systems. One or more indices are used as the measures of reliability. For example
 the number of failures during the quarantine period,
 mean failure time
are the two important indices for a manufacturer to determine the guarantee period. On the
other hand the most important reliability indices for a company using a considerable amount
of electrical energy are
 Mean outage per year,
 Mean time of a single outage,
 Cost of an outage

It is clear that the applicability and validity of the calculations depend on the system models
and the accuracy of the data. Therefore, inferring a system model either from the past data or
from the experimental data (data obtained from accelerated life tests) is one of the most
important steps of reliability analysis.

In addition, we have to state that reliability analysis should be performed during the design
state as a part of design process. It is not economical to improve the reliability of a unit after
its design. Quality control issues aim to access the reliability level determined during the
design process. Excellent quality control provides to reach the maximum reliability level
intended during the design stage. In addition, quality control process provides the required
data for reliability analysis.

1.7 System reliability Analysis

Main steps of a system reliability analysis are illustrated below. The objectives of system
reliability analysis are one or more of the followings:
 Determine the appropriate reliability indices and calculate them,
 Determine the weak points of the system so that the reliability can be improved to a
desired value,
 Eliminate the unnecessary spares, if required,
 Compare different design alternatives,
 Determine if additional protection and monitoring facilities are required,
 Determine the periods of preventive maintenance and measurement periods

At the first stage of system reliability analysis;

 Determine the functions of the system and order them according to their importance,
 Collect the past date for system components, eliminate the inappropriate ones and prepare
useful data.
 Determine the failure modes of the components and the interaction of the failures,
 Determine the operation/failure modes of the system,
 Collect the monitoring and maintenance data,
 Determine the boundaries which restrict the validity of the analysis.

Then system components are modeled with respect to the information obtained during the
initial stage. Appropriate reliability measures and the methods for the calculation of those
indices are determined at the third stage. Those indices are later calculated and then compared
with either intended quantities or the limits imposed in the standards/specifications. If the
results are not satisfactory, the required design revisions/changes are done to improve the
values of the indices.

Data collection
and processing

Modeling

Selection of the
indices and Design
calculation methods revisions/changes

Calculation

Evaluation of the
Satisfactory
results

1.8 Reliability and Economy

System reliability can be improved by one or more of the followings;

 by improving component reliability,
 by using stand-by redundant components,
 by decreasing the period of preventive maintenance,
 by increasing measurement and monitoring facilities

It is clear that all these improvement methods require additional investment costs. On
the other economic considerations are taken into account at the final decision making
process of almost all types of applications. The following figure illustrates the relation
between the reliability and the investment costs.

Reliability , R
1.0

R Sensitivity = R /C
C

Investment costs , C
It is clear from the figure that the reliability is more sensitive to investment cost for
lower reliability values. This sensitivity decreases and incremental investment for the
improvement of reliability increases.

On the other hand, it is known that there is an additional cost of lower reliability. This
additional cost should be taken into account for a fair decision. The following figure
states that there is an optimal point where the cost function is minimum. However, it is
not always possible to quantify the cost of lower reliability in a practical life since this
type of decisions may sometimes be subjective. Therefore, this optimal point may
change wrt to subjective evaluations.

Cost
Total Cost

Investment Cost

Cost of lower reliability

1.0 Reliability