2004 E E E International Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRF’T2004) April 2004 Hong Kong

Application of Reliability-Centered Stochastic Approach and FMECA

to Conditional Maintenance of Electric Power Plants in China
Cheng Yun, T. S . Chung, C. W. Yu, C. Y.Chung, Zeng Ming, Sun Xin

Abstract -- In a competitive supply-side power market, disassembly and reinstallation may bring unwanted
conditional maintenance can help the generation utilities to abrasion to some precision machine and shorten their total
reduce cost and gain more profit. In this paper, life-span. Under the power market, generation utilities are
Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) analytical method is expected to improve the usability and reliability of
adopted. The reliability-basedmathematical model for predicting
the failures of the subsystems and components in the power plant machines by the most efficient measures; therefore their
is established, and the failure mechanism is studied. Software is maintenance plan should meet the requirement of
developed to simulate the failures evolution and forecast their encountering the smallest number of contingencies and
tendency. Based on the above and further ranking the keeping maintenance cost as low as possible. Thus.
weightiness of equipment whose status to he observed by Conditional Maintenance can be used effectively in the
FMECA (Failure Mode Effects & Criticality Analysis), the generation utilities to help attain such a target.
power plant manager may choose appropriate condition Since the 1930’s, the evolution of maintenance can
monitoring and failure diagnosis apparatus for caving out be traced through three phases [ I , 21. Its first stage is the
Conditional Maintenance. At the end of this paper, some Break Maintenance; then it was changed to Fixed-time
suggestions on the reformation of equipment maintenance plan
and pattem in China are proposed. In this paper, practical Maintenance as the industry was developed. Recently the
research on four 200 MW generation units of Junliangcheng new pattem of Conditional Maintenance (CM) is under
Power Plant in China is implemented. The results show that it intensive research. Conditional Maintenance, also called
can effciently help decreasing the cost on maintenance and as Predictive Maintenance, is a maintenance pattem based
hence improve the total benefit. on the principles and technologies of condition monitoring
and failure diagnosis. By taking the historical and present
K q m r d s - Conditional Maintenance, Reliability-Centered operation status of certain equipment into account,
Maintenance (RCM), FMECA (Failure Mode Effects& Criticality analyzing and estimating system-wide and
Analysis), maintenance plan, maintenance panem
comprehensively, it can detect the interior status of the
equipment, find out the characteristics of the flaws,
I. INTRODUCTION forecast the growing tendency of the hidden failure, and
propose suggestions on prevention and supervision. It
Under the ongoing reformation of the electric supply would thereby postpone the traditional preventive
industry in China, generation utilities have been separated
maintenance, enhance the equipment usability, decrease
from the power grid companies, and they must bid to gain the standby equipment in the power plant and hence
more allowed generating power into the power market. increase the profit. Here we must point out that because
Faced with the competition on the power-supply-side, the
the purchase, installation and operation of condition
generation utilities would devote more work on the focus
monitoring and failure diagnosis apparatus would need
of reducing cost and gaining the hest benefit while considerable cost, therefore only when the benefit by
operating safely and reliably. implementing CM is larger than the cost, the manager of a
In the past, the guideline of ‘give priority to power plant would likely decide to carry it out.
preventing failures, and perform fixed-time maintenance
according to the schedule’ is executed in the Chinese 11. METHODOLOGY
electric supply industry. The equipment maintenance is
performed- -routinely according io planned schedule.
In this paper, Reliability-Centered Maintenance
However, for some equipment with high manufacturing (RCM) analysis method is adopted. Firstly, statistical data
technology, fixed-time maintenance is redundant and may is analyzed, the reliability-based mathematical model for
have over-maintenance; while for some others, it cannot
predicting the failures of the subsystems and components
meet their requirement of continuous safe operation and
in the power plant is established, and the failure
may have under-maintenance. In addition, the fixed-time
mechanism is studied. Then software is developed to
simulate the failures evolution and forecast their tendency.
The software may also give suggestions on the equipment
Cheng Yun,T. S. Chung, C. W.Yu and C. Y. Chung arc with Dcpt.
management, maintenance management and standby
of Electrical Engineeing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung components management. Based on the above and further
Hom Kowlmrr Hons Kmg (4 y d w g e @ & u ~ ranking the weightiness of equipment whose status to he
cctschun@plp.edu.&cccwyu@ po1yu.edu.k cccychun@polp.edu.hk). observed by FMECA (Failure Mode Effects & Criticality
Zeng Ming is with School of Business and Administration, North
~ E l ~ c P o w a U ~ v a s l ~ B e i ~ l n g ~ ( c n a i l : z c n g r u n g b ~ l Analysis),
63.~). the power plant manager and operator may
Sun Xin is with Anhui Electnc Power Company, Hcfci, Anhui, choose appropriate condition monitoring and failure
China (c-mail: sumin5306@163,cam) diagnosis apparatus as the hardware to carry out
Conditional Maintenance. At the end of this paper, some

0-7803-8237-4/04/$17.0002004IEEE
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2004 IEEE Intemational Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 Hong Kong

suggestions on the reformation of equipment maintenance T,.

plan and pattem in China at this stage are proposed. In this Firstly, the remaining reliability level Rs(t) is calculated by
research, simulation on four 200MW generation units of I
-(ttts )"
e
Junliangcheng
implemented.
Power Plant in Tianjin City is
R , ( t ) = R ( f + t , It,)=
lo
I
---,,*
= e- L [ 0 + t , ) y ~ ]
lo

A. Mathematical Model and Computer Process
The electrical system is special and complicated, in
which the generation supply, transmission, distribution
and consumption of electrical power must take place
simultaneously. In this paper, to concentrate on the
maintenance issues in the power plant, the following
assumptions are made: The transfer grid between the
power source and the load is absolutely reliable. In other
words, there is no contingency or over-load in the transfer
grid, and the voltage level at the sink area is not less than
the lower voltage limit.
After gathering enough data of certain equipment
failures, the data distribution histogram can be drawn,
from which the failure density can be obtained. By
comparing it with various typical curves of failure density
functions, the distribution style of the failure can be
estimated. Analysis on the concerned data by this method
shows that the failure time distribution of the generation
equipment tallies with the dual-parameter Weibull
distribution, the reliability function of which is
R ( ~=) e$ and the failure distribution function is
I
F ( t ) = 1 -er." , where m is shape parameter and to is
scale parameter. The confirmation check by adopting
Weibull probability paper indicates the following
infomation: 1. ne ~i~~ of ~ ~(TTF)i and thel
Total Time of Repair (TTR) are in accordance with the
dual-parameter Weibull distribution; 2. Estimation value
of the two Weibull parameters, m and to for certain
equipment can be obtained by the distribution figure.
Maximum Likelihood Method is further used to compute
more accurate value of the two Weibull parameters. At last
the estimated results of the parameters are validated by the
x2 test method.
Software for CM is then developed in this research.
It has three main functions, namely the single-step
prediction, multi-step prediction and making suggestions
for the equipment management, maintenance management
and standby components management.
In the data analysis and computing algorithm of the
software, several reliability indexes are used, such as the
reliability level, the remaining reliability level Rs(t), the
failure density function f(t), the most possible failure time
Tp. the left side percenhun believable section [T4, + m],
the failure ratio, average life-span, etc.
I) Single-Step Prediction
The focus of whole prediction and suggestion
process is the failure event prediction algorithm, which
means to evaluate the most possible failure time T, and
the lower limit of left side percentum believable section
e 41
For Weibull distribution, the failure density function
Secondly, Tpis the most possible time that failure
may take place on equipment. Mathematically, T, is the
value o f t when f(t) gets its maximum value, i.e. solution
o f t for-
df(t) = 0
dt
I
Therefore, T, = [
to(m-l)
]
-
m
-t,
Then To can be determined. Under certain
believable degrke a, the interval [T,, +CO] within which
failure on equipment may take place is the left side
percentum believable section. In other words, for a
constant 9 here &<I, if it is true that
pT < < a , then &, +m] is called as the left
{4- -
side
~ percenhm
~ believable
~ section with believable degree of a.
In the Software developed by this research, the believable
degree0 o may be chosen from three selections: Q = 70 %,
85 %, or 95 % (which one to be chosen is up to practical
requirement and is determined by the software users).
I
hence T, = [t: - t o In a. -t, ,
The equipment reliability is composed of both
inherence and usage reliability. In general, to the
generation equipment, the inherence reliability is the main
factor, which is the general characteristic of one type
equipment and is determined by the design, materials and
the manufacture technology. On the other hand, the usage
reliability is the specialty of certain equipment that is
shaped by influence of outside conditions, i.e., various
weather, environment, operation role, dissimilar failures
occurred on different individual, dissimilar operation by
different inspector, etc. during the installation, debugging,
operation and maintenance process [3,4]. Hence for
special equipment, it has both the common inherence of
its kind and its own individuality.
In the calculation of the reliability indexes, the
individuality of equipment is involved by considering its
historical running conditions such as the failure times and

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2004 IEEE International Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Reshucturing and Power Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 Hong Kong
the maintenance aftereffect.
For a given generation equipment, if it is
commissioned at Ta, the beginning time for prediction is
TSo,and its total failure times is nf, define parameter r as
r = Tso - T,n . Here r denotes the average interval
n/
between failures. To enhance accuracy of the result, a
power index p may be set between [0, 11 according to
operation practice. In this research, 0 is set as 0.5. Then let
t o ' = t o x ( 1 - j 3 ) + r " x ~ , a n d r e p l a c e to as fo' in
the calculation of T, and T,, so as to involve the
equipment failure times.
If equipment restarts at T, after the past maintenance,
and the beginning time for single-step prediction is Tso,
then t, = Ts, - T, . Because of many practical reasons,
it is not always true for equipment to be the same with
what it was before the failure. Here an index 6 is adopted
to describe the maintenance result.
i) 6=0, the equipment is completely repaired and it may
operate as a new equipment;
ii) 6=1, the equipment is minimally repaired;
iii) 0<6<1, the equipment is repaired incompletely.
To take the maintenance aftereffect into account,
T, may be revised as T, ' .
i) 6=0, T,'=T,;
ii) 6=1, T , ' = T , - T y , here T,is the running hours of
equipment before the past failure;
iii) 0 4 4 , Tr'=T,-T, x 6 .
Thus, by using t 7 = T,,
.~ - T7'in the calculation of
T, and T,, the maintenance aftereffect may also be
included.
2) Multi-Step Prediction
The maintenance staff and the manager hope not
only to predict the next failure of certain equipment, but
also the operation status of the whole system during a
certain period in the near future. The multi-step prediction
is developed to meet this requirement. It realizes the
continuous rolling prediction by the time sequence of
events, which means: equipment failure +
system failures
3 maintain the broken-down equipment 3 system
operates normally 3 another equipment failure 3 ., .,.
When the multi-step prediction is executed, the
starting and end time is recorded as T, and T,. Then the
beginning time of single-step prediction Th is set to be
equaled with T,, and the blockette of single-step
prediction is transferred to get the first failure time T,. If
the repair time for the failure equipment is Tf, the next
failure time is predicted by resetting the beginning time of
single-step prediction Tbas Th = T, + Tf and transferring
the single-step prediction blockette once more. If Th< T,,
then the prediction is continuously carried out; otherwise
ifTb> T,, the multi-step prediction stopped.
3) Making Suggestions for the Equipment
Management, Maintenance Management and Standby
components Management
Based on the results of single and multi-step
prediction, and taking the equipment reliability
characteristics into account, the software provides the
corresponding 'equipment management', 'maintenance
management' and 'standby components management'
suggestions, so as to indicate clear information for the
spot operation by maintenance staff.
The above pursuits are the software support for
Conditional Maintenance, at the same time, they are also
the feasibility base for selecting the hardware of condition
monitoring and failures diagnosis.
B. Select the Condition Monitoring & Failures Diagnosis
Apparatus
To implement the CM efficiently, enough efforts
must be given to the condition monitoring and failures
diagnosis. There are numerous equipment and components
in a generation unit. If the operation status of all of them
is monitored and all the monitored data are analyzed, the
workload in a limited duration must be very burdensome;
even worse, a new avoidable failure may take place
because the previous faulted pivotal parameters are not
treated in time. Besides, it is wasteful and unnecessary for
the power plant. In the power plant, although failures
often occur on some equipment, but the sequent following
it may bring only little harness, moreover, it is easy and
not so expensive to repair the failure. On the other hand,
some equipment seldom encounter with failures, however,
troubles following which is very severe, i.e., the fiacture
of the generator rotor [5]. Hence in practice, the condition
monitoring and failures diagnosing should be performed
on the most needful equipment, by integrated analysis of
the maintenance expenses, the forced outage rate, the
influence on the usability, etc.
In this paper, to select objects to be observed by the
condition monitoring and failure diagnosis apparatus,
FMECA (Failure Mode Effects & Criticality Analysis),
which involves the analysis of failure mode effects
together with the criticality, hence capable of ranking the
main failure modes and the corresponding diagnosis
technologies based on their influence, is adopted. FMECA
is the synthetic analysis on the failure mode, effect and
__ crucial grade. In FMECA, the failure modes and
probability on equipment or component was first
investigated, then their influence on the status of the
equipment or component was analyzed, following the
effect of the equipment or component on the status of the
subsystem, at last the impact of the subsystem on the
status of the system was studied.
The FMECA is implemented as following:
I) Reclassify the recorded failure data by
equipment code, so as to aggregate data of the
same equipment together;
2) Accumulate the 'total number of forced outage'
Ni and 'total time of forced outage' Ti of each
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2004 TEEE International Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRPT2004)April 2004 Hong Kong

equipment; 15 205 1 Extracting-Steam Conduit

3) Divide the total unit-year number of the & Valve

On the basis of the aforementioned output of the

RCM based software, guided by the weightiness order
obtained by the above FMECA method, with a
consideration of the technology and market growing-up
level, the most economical and reliable condition
monitoring and failures diagnosis apparatuses could be
chosen optimally.

111. CONCLUSIONS

The RCM based Conditional Maintenance software

developed in this paper has been implemented in
Junliangcbeng Power Plant, and FMECA method was
adopted in choosing appropriate condition monitoring and
failure diagnosis apparatus. The practical experiences in
the last two years showed that it can efficiently help
decreasing the cost on maintenance and hence improve
their total benefit. The manager and operators are satisfied
with the outcome.
According to the practical conditions in China
electric supply industry, the following suggestions on the
reformation of equipment maintenance mechanism by
carrying out CM are proposed:
1) Since the practical outages mostly occurred on the
auxiliary equipment, and rarely on the primary
machines, at the initial stage, Conditional
Maintenance should be carried out on the auxiliary
equipment. To the primary machines, fixed-time
maintenance under condition monitoring is suggested
to be implemented on the turbo generator as pilot.
With the indication of monitored status, the
maintenance intervals of the primary machines are
expected to be gradually prolonged from 3 4 years to
8-10 years.
2) While the interval between two sequential overhaul
maintenance is prolonged by the assistance of CM,
the suspending period for maintenance should keep
unchanged or even be shortened. Because the failure
parts and pattern is explicit by the condition
monitoring, we need less time to fmd where and how
Weightiness Equipment Equipment Tag to implement maintenance on appropriate object. In
Order Code addition, the routine light maintenance between
overhaul maintenance may be canceled with the
progress of CM.
3) According to the operating status of the equipment
and the predictive output of the software, the
maintenance can be executed during the light load
period, when the electricity price is lower and the
benefit loss is less. Hence the power plant may make
more profit in the market competition.
4) Avoid or at least reduce destructive testing as much as
possible with the assistance of the CM. This testing
measure has shown obvious flaws in practice such as
unnecessary wastage. For example, voltage-tolerance
testing is adopted in the traditional testing on cable.
Since there is no predictive data, it cannot be
ascertained how long the cable can withstand and

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2004 IEEE International Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 Hong Kong

what measure is suitable for it. The cable will

breakdown once the testing is unsuccessful.
Enhance the technology of the condition monitoring
and failure diagnosis and install such apparatuses on
the most appropriate equipment.
In the process of carrying out CM, by continuously
summing-up, feeding-back, evaluating and amending
the whole chain of monitoring, analysis, diagnosis,
decision-making and maintenance, make CM achieve
its full potential in the practical case. It is a system
engineering to implement CM, whose details should
he ameliorated by practical feedback information.
In this paper, CM has been studied in a launched
power plant. If we consider CM when programming a
new plant, the standby equipment in the planning
stage can be decreased and the investment can be cut
down considerably. Take an example of electrical
pump which is necessary for every generation unit. If
the safe and reliable operation of the two steam
pumps can be guaranteed by the support of
appropriate condition monitoring, one set of electrical
pump of each generation unit can be detracted from
the routine number of two, which accounts for several
millions of RMB Yuan. Therefore, with only this item,
the saved investment would exceed the total
expenditure on the condition monitoring.
Substantive man-hours, manpower and materials
resources can he retrenched by Conditional Maintenance.
At the same time, the reliability of power supply can be
increased. So it is beneficial for both the power plants and
power networks towards achieving safe operation as well
as gaining financial profit.

IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research funding from the Hong Kong Polytechnic

University is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also
acknowledge the assistance on the data supplied by the
China Electric Power Reliability Administration Center
and Junliangcheng Power Plant. The fmancial assistance
for this research project from Tianjin Electrical Power
Cooperation is also greatly appreciated.

V. REFERENCES
[ I ] Maintenance Managcmcnt Workstation Applications, EPRI
Technoloo Rwien., Dec.1995
[2] Zeng Ming, Application of Conditional Maintenance in Thhcrmo
Power Plant, Chino ElecryicPowes Vol. 31, 1998,66-68
[ 3 ] R.Guo, C.E. Love, Statistical Analysis far Agc Model of Impcrfcctly
repaircd Systems, Quoliy ond Reliability En@neerinz hremalional,
Yo1.8, 1992, 133.146
[4] R . Guo, C.E. Love, Simulation Strategies to Identify thc Failurc
Paramctcrs of Repairable Systems undcr thc lntluencc of Gcncral Rcpair,
Qualig and Reliability Engineeying hremationo1,Vol.IO, 1994,37-47
[ 5 ] Moycs, A., et al. Combining design and opcratianal knowlcdge to
enhance generator plant diagnostics, PNC IEE Cm5 on Generalion,
Transmission and Disbiburion, May 1996,300 -304

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