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Integrating AI for Health Management in Brazilian Hydroelectric Power Plants

Conference Paper · May 2024

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 The 4th International Conference on Vulnerability and Risk Analysis and Management (ICVRAM 2024)
the 8th International Symposium on Uncertainty Modelling and Analysis (ISUMA 2024)
April 25-28, 2024, Shanghai, China

Integrating AI for Health Management in Brazilian Hydroelectric Power Plants

Renan Favarão da Silvaa, Miguel A. C. Michalskia, Arthur H. A. Melania, and Gilberto F. M. de Souzaa
aDepartment of Mechatronics and Mechanic Systems Engineering, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, E-mail:
melani@usp.br, michalski@usp.br, renanfavarao@usp.br, gfmsouza@usp.br

Abstract with the literature that usually applies supervised

Effective management of critical physical assets is
fundamental to ensuring availability and safety in
industrial operations. In this context, Engineering
Systems Health Management (ESHM) offers a holistic
approach to monitoring, assessing, and optimizing the
health of these systems. As organizations become
increasingly reliant on complex and interconnected
assets, the importance of ESHM becomes more
pronounced. It provides a proactive approach to
mitigating risks, ensuring reliability, and extending the
lifecycle of critical assets.
ESHM incorporates three main sequential
processes: fault detection, diagnosis, and prognosis
(FDDP). Fault detection involves identifying anomalies
in a system to determine the presence of faults. On the
other hand, fault diagnosis may be understood as
finding the cause and location of the fault, offering
essential insights for informed decision-making and
targeted interventions [1]. Lastly, fault prognosis
focuses on predicting future system behavior to
determine when the diagnosed fault will turn into a
failure [2].
In the last years, the integration of Artificial
Intelligence (AI), especially through machine learning
applications, has boosted and enabled enhanced ESHM
as these AI techniques provide efficiency and viability
to FDDP processes. Thus, machine learning algorithms
combined with the engineering system condition
monitoring database contribute to the extraction of
meaningful patterns, improving the accuracy and speed
of decision-making for Condition-Based Maintenance.
In Brazil, hydroelectric power plants are of
importance for internal power generation supply and
are examples of asset-intensive industries in that ESHM
is increasingly significant. Hence, several AI
applications for health management have been
developed and validated in order to support the FDDP
processes. In this context, this manuscript presents
different AI applications developed by the Reliability
Analysis Laboratory of the University of São Paulo for
ESHM in Brazilian hydroelectric power plants,
highlighting their techniques and main results.
First, for fault detection, different methods were
developed based on different AI techniques. In contrast
machine learning for this purpose, the experience of the
laboratory through research projects with organizations
from hydroelectric generation focused on unsupervised
applications due to the lack of labeled data.
Accordingly, fault detection methods need to be
supported by approaches that do not rely on labeled
failure data of the hydrogenerator. Thus, unsupervised
and semi-supervised methods have been explored and
applied to work around this issue. The Referenced
Moving Window Principal Component Analysis
(RMWPCA) was developed and validated to enable
fault detection in situations where monitored data did
not adhere to the assumptions of the traditional
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique [3].
This method has been applied for fault detection in
Kaplan turbine generating units, detecting actual
ongoing faults in this equipment [4-6].
Additionally, other AI techniques also supported
unsupervised and semi-supervised fault detection for
hydroelectric power plants. Autoencoder, a specific
type of neural network, has also been explored to detect
faults in hydrogenerator [2,7] as well as multiple
regression models [8].
For fault diagnosis, due to the lack of labeled data
with system failures, the challenge lies in developing
methods that incorporate intrinsic knowledge regarding
failure modes without requiring specific rule sets. For
this purpose, Bayesian Networks can be applied
considering the prior information regarding the
probability of failure for different items of the
hydrogenerator [5,6]. In order to support the structured
knowledge needed to easily translate into the BN-based
method, various tools can be used for this purpose, such
as the developed Failure Mode and Observability
Analysis (FMOA) [9].
Finally, for fault prognosis, the challenge becomes
greater while working with unlabeled data as this
process requires parameters that determine the failure
(e.g., end of life or threshold). In this case, identifying
variations in the Health State (HS) based on the Health
Index (HI) can be an interesting approach [10]. On the
other hand, when the threshold of monitored variables
is known, its HI can be extrapolated to calculate the
Remaining Useful Life (RUL) using Autoencoder
 The 4th International Conference on Vulnerability and Risk Analysis and Management (ICVRAM 2024)
the 8th International Symposium on Uncertainty Modelling and Analysis (ISUMA 2024)
[2,7], Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average
(ARIMA) models for time series analysis [11], or even
methods based on dimensionality reduction techniques
such as PCA [12].
The integration of AI applications within ESHM
has shown to be promising, especially in the context of
Brazilian hydroelectric power plants. The shift towards
unsupervised and semi-supervised methods for FDDP,
due to the scarcity of labeled failure data, not only
addresses a challenge but also underscores the
adaptability and potential of the integration of AI in
health management. Therefore, the different works
discussed in this manuscript provide support for
implementing FDDP processes and serve as references
for other organizations that also lack labeled data on
failures.
Finally, through the exploration of techniques
such as RMWPCA, autoencoder, multiple regression
models, BN, and ARIMA, it was highlighted how AI-
based methods can be effectively developed and
contribute to advancing the field of ESHM. Thus, it is
expected that these findings will contribute to
maintenance professionals and researchers in diffusing
the potential of unsupervised and semi-supervised
approaches for FDDP.
Keywords: Health Management; Physical Asset
Management; Artificial Intelligence; Hydroelectric
Power Plant
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April 25-28, 2024, Shanghai, China
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