2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering 1505

CPIE-2010

Reliability, Maintainability & Availability analysis of a coal fired power plant in

eastern region of India
D D Adhikary1, G Bose1, S Mitra2 and D Bose3
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia, India
(d_dasadhikary@rediffmail.com)
2
Department of Production Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Kolkata, India

Various techniques have been discussed in the

Abstract – Reliability, maintainability and availability
analysis are important tools for decisions making
regarding estimation and planning of maintenance
strategies pertaining to manufacturing and production
systems. In the present paper a case study regarding
reliability, maintainability and availability analysis of a
210MW coal fired thermal power plant in the eastern
region of India has been presented. The overall power
plant system is classified into eight subsystems for
categorization of the failures. Analysis of each subsystem
has been conducted by considering 13 years of past failure
data. Trend test and serial correlation tests, has been used
to validate the assumption of independent and identical
distribution of failure/repair data before they are fitted
best with theoretical probability distributions. Reliability
and maintainability of the power plant has been estimated
at different mission times. The study shows that reliability
and maintainability analysis is very much effective in
deciding preventive maintenance intervals and also
planning and organizing the maintenance program.
Keywords - Repairable system, Coal fired thermal
power plant, Reliability, Maintainability and
Availability analysis, Reliability based maintenance
interval.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electricity is an essential commodity of mankind.
Power plants are needed to generate electricity
continuously without failure. The availability of a
complex power plant system is strongly associated with
its component’s reliability and maintenance policy.
Failure of significant equipment results in adverse
consequence on the power generation, productivity and
cost of generation. Failure of any component or
equipment leads to disruption in power generation and
eventually loss of revenue.
It has been observed that most of the power plant in
eastern part of India is coal fired. This is due to the fact
that there is an easy availability of coal and water in the
region. Most of the maintenance tasks of power plant
equipment are based on manufacturer’s
recommendations. These recommendations are not
always based on practical data. Generally
manufacturers get very little feedback from their users
at the end of an useful life period [1] of their product.
literature regarding reliability, availability and
maintainability analysis of repairable system such as
power plants, mining equipments etc. Reliability and/or
availability assessment of some individual equipments
of thermal power plant have been reported in several
papers such as on gas turbine installed in a 500MW
combined cycle power plant [1], on steam generating
system of an oil-fired thermal power plant [2], on steam
and power generation systems in a thermal power plant
[3], on coal conveyor system in a thermal power plant
[4], on coal crushing system in the thermal power plant
[5], on naphtha fuel oil system in a thermal power plant
[6], or on feed water system in a thermal power plant
[7]. Alkali et. al. has carried out an analysis on failure
and maintenance data extraction from power plant
maintenance management databases [8]. Risk-based
decision making method for maintenance policy
selection of thermal power plant equipment has been
carried out by F.G. Carazas and G.F.M. Souza [9].
Some studies on mining equipment consisting of
various subsystems have been reported in several
papers. Samanta et. al [10] has analyzed reliability,
availability and maintainability on heavy earth moving
machinery (HEMM) in an open cast mine in eastern
part of India using failure data by graphical and
analytical techniques. They have identified the
equipments which are in early life or in useful life or in
wear out period in order to take decision of breakdown
or preventive or predictive preventive maintenance
respectively. J. Barabady [11] has also analyzed the
reliability and maintainability on a crushing plant in
Jajarm bauxite mine. Kumar et. al [12] and J Paraszczak
et. al [13] have carried out reliability based
investigation on diesel operated load haul dump (LHD)
machines in an underground mine. The main objective
of their studies was to identify the critical machine
subsystems which require further improvement through
effective maintenance policies in order to enhance the
operational reliability of the machine. In these studies,
graphical and analytical techniques have been used to
fit probability distributions for characterization of
failure data. J Barabady [11] advocated adopting the
maintenance interval for a 75% reliability level initially
and then, after observation of the benefits obtained in
terms of cost, safety and operational effectiveness of the
2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering 1506
CPIE-2010

subsystems may be adjusted for higher value of reliability, maintainability and availability. The
reliability. classification of the power plant is presented in Table 1.
It is interesting to note that most of the reliability
and availability analysis has been carried out on
individual equipments on oil-fired or on nuclear or on TABLE 1
gas turbine power plant. But very few studies have been SUBSYSTEMS OF THE POWER PLANT AND THEIR CODE
conducted on individual equipments of coal fired No Subsystem Code
thermal power plants. So there is a clear need to analyze 1 Economizer ECO
reliability, maintainability and availability of a whole 2 Primary Superheater PSH
3 Final Superheater FSH
coal fired power plant considering its subsystems 4 Pendent Reheater PRH
affecting the power plant failure for taking decision 5 Final Reheater FRH
regarding maintenance policies. 6 Furnace FUR
7 Turbine TUR
8 Condenser CON
II. OBJECTIVES
A. DATA COLLECTION
Here the nature of the failure patterns (increasing,
constant or decreasing) of the power plant's subsystems
Collection of quality failure data is usually
has been studied. The significant components that
necessary in the analysis of system reliability for getting
seriously affect the failure of the power plant are
reliable and accurate results. Data collected from the
identified using Pareto chart. The reliability and
field over a long period of time are assumed to be the
maintainability are estimated and the recent availability
best for true failure characterization of the complex
of the power plant subsystems is calculated. The critical
system although they are expensive and time
subsystems with respect to reliability and
consuming to collect [11]. The maintenance data (TBF
maintainability characteristics are identified for further
& TTR) has been collected from the maintenance
improvement through effective maintenance policies to
logbook records of the coal fired thermal power plant
enhance the availability of the plant as a whole.
over a period of 13 years. Then data of each subsystem
Formulation of a reliability-based preventive
has been classified in the form required for analysis (i.e.
maintenance policy prior to failure is generated which
TBF, TTR, frequency, total breakdown hours, total
in turn will improve the reliability of the subsystems.
working hours, total maintenance hours, etc).

B. IDENTIFICATION OF CRITICAL SUBSYSTEMS

III. CASE STUDY
AND FAILURES
In the present paper a case study has been
The Pareto analysis has been used in order to
considered describing the reliability, maintainability
identify the “significant few and the insignificant
and availability analysis of a 210MW coal fired thermal
many” subsystems and is shown in Fig.1. The aim is to
power plant situated in eastern part of India. In a coal
find out the significant components since their failure
fired thermal power plant, coal, water and air are fed
seriously affects the failure of the whole plant.
into the boiler after processing. Hot gases evolve by
burning of coal, which circulate in the boiler drum,
conduct heat to the circulating water and finally leave 40

through the boiler chimney. Here the circulating water 35

30
is converted into dry and saturated steam at a pressure
Frequency

25

of 220bar and temperature of 374°C, and then 20

superheated in primary superheater to 540°C and in 15

final superheater to 635°C. Then it is sent to the turbine 10

5
where pressure energy of steam is converted into 0

mechanical energy and electricity is generated from ECO PSH FSH PRH FRH FUR TUR CON
generator connected to the turbine. The exhaust steam
from the turbine is sucked into the condenser due to Fig.1 Failure characteristics of the power plant subsystems.
negative pressure, where the wet steam loses its thermal
energy and gets converted into water. This water from It is observed from Fig. 1 that the most frequent
the condenser is again pumped into the boiler. failure occurrence takes place in the economizer
The power plant is classified into eight subsystems (31.09%), which is followed by primary superheater
for categorizing the failures and for analysis of (18.49 %). So these subsystems need to be inspected for
maintenance more than the other subsystems.
 2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering 1507
CPIE-2010

Trend plot for PRH

C. DATA ANALYSIS FOR VALIDATION OF 12

Cum. frequency
INDEPENDENT AND IDENTICAL DISTRIBUTION 10
ASSUMPTION 8
6
The TBF and TTR data of all subsystems are 4
arranged in chronological order for statistical analysis 2
to determine the trend of failure. The validity of 0
assumption of independent and identical distribution of

00

00
0

0
00

00

00

00

00

00
data set has been verified using Trend Test and Serial

20

40

60

80

10

12
Cum. TBF
Correlation Test. The trend test for TBF/TTR data set is
done by plotting the cumulative frequency against the Fig.2 Trend plot for TBF for subsystems of the power plant
cumulative time between failures (CTBF)/cumulative
time to repair (CTTR) respectively. The serial Trend plot for ECO
correlation test is done by plotting the ith TBF/TTR 35
against (i-1)th TBF/TTR. The trend test for TBF and 30

Cum. frequency
25
TTR data of ECO, PSH, FSH and PRH of the power
20
plant for example, are shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3
15
respectively. The serial correlation test for both TBF 10
and TTR data of the same subsystems for example, are 5
shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5 respectively. 0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Cum. TTR
Trend plot for ECO
40
35
Cum. frequency

Trend plot for PSH

30
18
25 16
Cum. frequency

20 14
15 12
10 10
5 8
0 6
4
0

00
0

2
00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00
10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

10

0
Cum. TBF 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Cum. TTR
Trend plot for PSH
25
Trend plot for FSH
Cum. frequency

20 10
Cum. frequency

15 8
10 6
5 4
0 2
0

00

00
0

0
00

00

00

00

0
00

00
20

40

60

80

10

12

0 100 200 300 400 500

Cum. TBF Cum.TTR

Trend plot for FSH Trend plot for PRH

15 6
Cum.frequency
Cum. frequency

5
10 4
3
5 2
1
0 0
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 0 50 100 150 200
Cum. TBF Cum. TTR

Fig.3 Trend plot for TTR for subsystems of the power plant

It is observed from Fig.2 & Fig.3 that the trend

plots for TBF/TTR data set of respective subsystems
2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering 1508
CPIE-2010

exhibit approximate straight line except TBF data set of

Serial Correlation test for PSH
PRH. This indicates that there are weak or no absolute 70
trend in the TBF/TTR data set of respective subsystems 60
except PRH. 50

ith TTR
40
Trend plot curve of PRH exhibits concave upward.
30
This indicates that there is a trend in data set of PRH. 20
10
0
Serial Correlation test for ECO 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
12000
(i-1) th TTR
10000
8000 Serial Correlation test for FSH
i th TBF

80
6000
60

i th TTR
4000
2000 40
0
20
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000
(i-1) th TBF 0
0 20 40 60 80
Serial Correlation test for PSH (i-1) th TTR
12000
10000 Serial Correlation test for PRH
40
i th TBF

8000
30
i th TTR

6000
4000 20
2000
10
0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 0
(i-1) th TBF 0 10 20 30 40
(i-1) th TTR
Serial Correlation test forFSH Fig.5 Serial correlation test plot for TTR of the subsystems
14000
12000
From Fig.4 & Fig.5 it is observed that the points
10000
are randomly scattered, which indicates that the data set
i th TBF

8000
6000
are independent or free from serial correlation.
4000 So the data set (TBF/TTR) can be assumed to be
2000 independent and identically distributed (iid) except TBF
0 data set of PRH. Data set of PRH is not independent
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 and identically distributed.
(i-1) th TBF

Fig.4 Serial correlation test plot for TBF of the subsystems D. FITTING OF THE TBF DATA WITH
THEORETICAL PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION
Serial Correlation test of ECO AND ESTIMATION OF THE RELIABILITY
120 PARAMETERS
100
80 The trend free data are further analyzed to
ith TTR

60 determine the accurate characteristics of failure or

40 repair time distribution. The two most commonly used
20 goodness of fit tests for data points are chi-square and
0 Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. The chi-squared test is
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 applied in case of samples having size greater than 50.
(i-1) th TTR
The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test is less restrictive. Since
the size of the sample has no lower limit. Therefore
Kolmogorov–Smirnov test has been used for goodness
of fit test of TBF/TTR data set using EasyFit5.3
professional software. Parameters of Weibull
distribution has been estimated analytically using
 2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering 1509
CPIE-2010

Sl. Sub- Best-fit Parameters TTT plot for TBF data of PRH
No. systems distribution 1.2

1 ECO Weibull θ= 2506.19 hrs. β= 1.3475 1

2 PSH Weibull θ= 5770.86 hrs. β=1.1457 0.8
θ= 5238.6 hrs. β=0.6050

H(ti)
3 FSH Weibull 0.6
4 PRH Non iid, θ= 9773 hrs. β=1.0394
0.4
NHPP, Power
0.2
law process
5 FRH Lognormal μ= 8.873 tmed=7136.65hrs. 0
s=1.2431 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

6 FUR Lognormal μ=9.889 tmed=19718.47hrs. i/n

s=1.2033 Fig.6 TTT plot for TBF data set of PRH
7 TUR Weibull θ= 10857 hrs. β=1.3675 Fig.6 indicates that the PRH is in a constant failure
8 CON Weibull θ= 21545 hrs. β=1.4157
rate as the plot is crossing diagonally many times.
equation 1 whereas for lognormal distribution following The results of best-fit distributions and their
equations 2, 3 & 4 respectively [14]. estimated parameters for TBF and TTR are shown in
Table 2 & Table 3 respectively
ln ln[1 /{1  F (t )}]
 (1)
ln t  ln  TABLE 2
BEST – FIT DISTRIBUTION FOR TBF DATA-SETS
where, β is Shape parameter, θ is Scale parameter &
F(t) is cumulative percentage of failures. It is observed from Table 2 that most of the
tmed  e  (2) subsystem's data set follows Weibull distribution except
FRH and FUR, which are best fitted to lognormal
n
ln(ti ) distribution and PRH followed by power law process
  (3) NHPP model. Shape parameter (β) of ECO, PSH, TUR
i 1 n and CON is more than one, which indicates increasing
failure rate due to aging process. Therefore predictive


preventive maintenance is suggested for these
{ln(ti )  }2
n

s i 1 (4) subsystems. Shape parameter of PRH is almost one,

n indicating a constant failure rate as they reach useful
life or steady state condition. Thus in case of PRH
where, μ is mean, tmed is median time to failure, s is preventive maintenance is suggested. Shape parameter
shape parameter. of FSH is less than one indicating decreasing failure
rate, which indicates that it is in its early life or
The data with trends has been analyzed by a non- debugging period. So for FSH breakdown maintenance
stationary model such as the Non-Homogeneous is the best option.
TABLE 3
Poisson Process (NHPP). In the present study, power
BEST – FIT DISTRIBUTION FOR TTR DATA-SETS
law process NHPP model has been used for reliability
modeling of PRH [15]. For this case the intensity Sl. Sub- Best-fit Parameters
No. systems distribution
function is given by [11], [14]:
1 ECO Weibull θ = 26 hrs. β= 1.7374
(  1) μ= 3.338 tmed =28.165 hrs.
   t  2 PSH Lognormal
 (t )   .  (5) s=1.0681
     3 FSH Lognormal μ= 3.775 tmed = 43.58 hrs.
The intensity function is same as Weibull hazard s=0.4449
4 PRH Weibull θ = 35.42 hrs. β=13.5632
rate function where, β is shape parameter and θ is scale 5 FRH Weibull θ = 20 hrs. β =1.1886
parameter
Goodness-of-fit test for TBF data set of PRH has 6 FUR Exponential MTTR = 94.4 hrs.
been conducted by TTT (Total Time on Test) plot based
on power law process. The TTT plot is shown in the 7 TUR Lognormal μ = 4.26 tmed = 70.84 hrs.
s = 0.4093
Fig.6 8 CON Weibull θ = 7.5 hrs. β =2.4108

Table 3 shows that TTR data set of ECO, PRH,

FRH and CON follows Weibull distribution. TTR data
set of PSH, FSH and TUR follows lognormal
distribution whereas FUR only follows exponential
distribution.

E. POWER PLANT RELIABILITY ESTIMATION

2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering 1510
CPIE-2010

where Ri is reliability of the different subsystems and Rs

The theoretical reliability for all subsystems at the is the reliability of the whole systems and n is total
end of different mission time has been estimated number of subsystems.
according to the best-fit distribution of their TBF data
set. In case of Weibull distribution neglecting location FUR ECO PSH FSH
parameter reliability has been calculated according to
equation 6 whereas in lognormal distribution it is
calculated by equation 7 [14]. CON TUR FRH PRH

t
  Fig.7 Simple reliability block diagram of the power plant
 
R(t )  e (6)
Reliability plot for all Subsystems
where, β is Shape parameter & θ is Scale parameter 1.20

1.00
1 t  (7)
R(t )  1    ln  0.80

Reliability
 s tmed 
0.60
where, tmed is median time to failure, s is shape
0.40
parameter and Ф is the probability density function.
All the subsystems are functionally arranged in a 0.20

series configuration, as shown in Fig.7. This signifies 0.00

that the power plant is in its working condition only 0

0
00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

0
20

60

00

00

00

00
10

14

18

23

30

40

50

70

90
when all the subsystems are working satisfactorily. The

12

16

20

26
Time (hours)
reliability of the whole plant is calculated according to
ECO PSH FSH
equation 8 Reliability of the subsystems and of the total PRH FRH FUR
power plant is shown in Fig.8. The calculated values are T UR CON T OT AL PLANT
tabulated in Table 4. Fig.8 Reliability plot for subsystems and of the whole power
n plant
Rs (t )   Ri (t ) (8)
i 1
TABLE 4
RELIABILITY OF THE POWER PLANT AT THE END OF DIFFERENT TIME INTERVALS
Time TOTAL
ECO PSH FSH PRH FRH FUR TUR CON
(hours) PLANT
0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
400 0.9191 0.9541 0.8098 0.9646 0.9898 0.9994 0.9891 0.9965 0.6679
800 0.8068 0.9013 0.7256 0.9285 0.9608 0.9961 0.9721 0.9906 0.4515
1200 0.6902 0.8475 0.6637 0.8931 0.9236 0.9901 0.9520 0.9834 0.2969
1600 0.5791 0.7945 0.6139 0.8586 0.8849 0.9817 0.9297 0.9751 0.1910
2000 0.4781 0.7431 0.5721 0.8251 0.8461 0.9713 0.9058 0.9660 0.1206
2600 0.3497 0.6696 0.5197 0.7768 0.7910 0.9535 0.8679 0.9511 0.0589
3000 0.2796 0.6234 0.4898 0.7460 0.7580 0.9419 0.8418 0.9405 0.0360
4000 0.1530 0.5184 0.4277 0.6736 0.6808 0.9082 0.7747 0.9119 0.0100
5000 0.0792 0.4281 0.3783 0.6076 0.6141 0.8729 0.7073 0.8812 0.0026
6000 0.0391 0.3515 0.3377 0.5476 0.5557 0.8389 0.6412 0.8490 0.0006
7000 0.0185 0.2872 0.3037 0.4932 0.5079 0.8051 0.5777 0.8158 0.0002
8000 0.0084 0.2337 0.2747 0.4439 0.4641 0.7734 0.5176 0.7819 0.0000
9000 0.0037 0.1894 0.2497 0.3993 0.4247 0.7422 0.4613 0.7478 0.0000
10000 0.0016 0.1530 0.2279 0.3591 0.3936 0.7123 0.4092 0.7137 0.0000
14000 0.0000 0.0633 0.1632 0.2339 0.2946 0.6103 0.2427 0.5809 0.0000
20000 0.0000 0.0157 0.1055 0.1218 0.2033 0.4960 0.0997 0.4066 0.0000
26000 0.0000 0.0037 0.0717 0.0630 0.1492 0.4091 0.0368 0.2712 0.0000
30000 0.0000 0.0013 0.0565 0.0404 0.1230 0.3632 0.0181 0.2023 0.0000
 2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering
CPIE-2010
From Table4, it is seen that there is only 45%
chance that the power plant will not fail for 800 hours
of operation whereas at the same time ECO has 81%
chance of failure free operation. It is also found that
ECO and PSH have the largest effect on reliability of
the whole power plant. Therefore subsequent measures
are to be taken such that the critical subsystem (ECO &
PSH) reliability gets improved in order to enhance the
reliability of the power plant as a whole
F. POWER PLANT MAINTAINABILITY ANALYSIS
1511
where, tmed is median time to failure, s is shape
parameter and Ф is the probability density function
The calculated maintainability of all subsystems as
well as of the whole power plant for different given
time is tabulated in Table5 and is shown in Fig.9
From Table 5, it is seen that the maintainability of
PSH and FUR is lower than other subsystems. So
special attention is required to improve their
maintainability as well as of the whole plant by
reducing maintenance time with proper resource
allocations like skilled manpower, spare parts etc.

The theoretical maintainability (M) for all

subsystems at the end of different given time (t) has
been estimated according to the best-fit distribution of Maintainability
1.20
their TTR data set. The maintainability of the

Maintainability
1.00
subsystems has been calculated according to equations 0.80
9, 10 & 11 for exponential, weibull or lognormal 0.60
distribution [14] of TTR data set respectively.
0.40
M (t )  1  et / MTTR (9) 0.20
where, MTTR is mean time to repair 0.00

t

0
10

20

34

50

70
  5

10

15

25

35

45
  (10)
M (t )  1  e ECO PSH FSH
PRH Time
FRH (hours) FUR
where, β is Shape factor & θ is Scale parameter T UR CON T otal Plant

1 t  (11)
Fig.9 Maintainability plot for subsystems and of the whole
M (t )    ln  power plant
 s t med 

TABLE 5
MAINTAINABILITY OF THE POWER PLANT AT THE END OF DIFFERENT MISSION TIMES

Time ECO PSH FSH PRH FRH FUR TUR CON Total
(hrs.) Plant
5 0.0554 0.0526 0.0000 0.0000 0.1751 0.0516 0.0000 0.3136 0.0000
10 0.1731 0.1660 0.0005 0.0000 0.3551 0.1005 0.0000 0.8648 0.0000
15 0.3192 0.2776 0.0082 0.0000 0.5085 0.1469 0.0001 0.9951 0.0000
20 0.4695 0.3745 0.0401 0.0004 0.7000 0.1909 0.0010 1.0000 0.0000
30 0.7226 0.4761 0.2005 0.0998 0.8019 0.2722 0.0179 1.0000 0.0000
40 0.8792 0.6293 0.4247 0.9945 0.8976 0.3454 0.0808 1.0000 0.0059
50 0.9556 0.7054 0.6217 1.0000 0.9488 0.4112 0.1977 1.0000 0.0323
70 0.9963 0.8023 0.8577 1.0000 0.9881 0.5236 0.4880 1.0000 0.1731
100 1.0000 0.8829 0.9693 1.0000 0.9989 0.6533 0.7996 1.0000 0.4465
150 1.0000 0.9418 0.9973 1.0000 1.0000 0.7959 0.9664 1.0000 0.7224
200 1.0000 0.9671 0.9997 1.0000 1.0000 0.8798 0.9945 1.0000 0.8459
300 1.0000 0.9865 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 0.9583 0.9998 1.0000 0.9452
400 1.0000 0.9934 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 0.9856 1.0000 1.0000 0.9790
500 1.0000 0.9964 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 0.9950 1.0000 1.0000 0.9914

G. POWER PLANT AVAILABILITY ANALYSIS


MTBF (12)
Finally the inherent availability (Ain) and A in
MTBF  MTTR
operational availability (Aop) for all subsystems has
been computed following equations 12 & 13 
MTBF (13)
A op
MTBF  MDT
respectively and subsequently tabulated in Table 6
2nd International Conference on Production and Industrial Engineering 1512
CPIE-2010

TABLE 6
AVAILABILITY OF THE SUBSYSTEMS AT THE END OF TIME UNDER STUDY
Subsystems Total Cum. Cum Cum. MTBF MDT Aop MTTR Ain
No. of TBF Down- TTR (hrs.) (hrs.) (hr.)
Failure (hr.) time (hr.)
ECO 38 93148 5118 1995 2451.26 134.68 0.95 52.5 0.98
PSH 22 101249 3110 2542 4602.27 141.35 0.97 115.53 0.98
FSH 14 93927 1359 971 6709.07 97.09 0.99 69.37 0.99
PRH 10 105589 707 423 10558.90 70.66 0.99 42.26 1.00
FRH 8 94325 407 175 11790.63 50.87 1.00 21.87 1.00
FUR 9 93945 792 540 10438.33 88.04 0.99 60.04 0.99
TUR 10 94065 786 486 9406.50 78.58 0.99 48.58 0.99
CON 7 95317 235 45 13616.71 33.64 1.00 6.49 1.00

where, MTBF is mean time between failures, MTTR is
mean time to repair and MDT is mean down time
Table 6 shows that the availability of ECO and
PSH is less than that of the other subsystems and is
critical. The availability of the ECO and PSH has to be
improved in order to improve the availability of the
whole power plant.
power plant. Then, after observation of the benefits
obtained in terms of cost, safety and operational
effectiveness of the subsystems, adjustments may be
done for a higher value of reliability.
IV. CONCLUSIONS

H. RELIABILITY BASED PREVENTIVE In the present research reliability, maintainability

MAINTENANCE INTERVAL ESTIMATION and availability of a coal fired thermal power plant has
been evaluated. All the TBF/TTR data sets of the power
The maintenance time intervals for different plant's subsystems are found to be independent and
expected levels of reliability are calculated and identically distributed except TBF data set of PRH.
tabulated in Table 7. Weibull distribution signifies the best fit, in most cases,
TABLE 7 to TBF datasets. ECO, PSH, TUR and CON indicates
RELIABILITY BASED PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE TIME increasing failure rate, so predictive preventive
INTERVAL maintenance is suggested. Shape parameter of PRH is
Sl. Subsystem Reliability based maintenance interval almost one, indicating a constant failure. Thus in case
No. (hours) of PRH preventive maintenance is suggested. FSH
0.90 0.80 0.75 0.60 0.50
1 ECO 471 822 994 1520 1907
exhibit decreasing failure rate and require breakdown
2 PSH 807 1555 1945 3210 4190 maintenance. The reliability of the power plant after
3 FSH 125 438 665 1720 2850 800 hours will reduce to 45%. The case study shows
4 PRH 1120 2300 2945 5120 6860 that ECO and PSH are critical from reliability point of
5 FRH 1435 2500 3050 5200 7140
6 FUR 4200 7150 8900 14500 19720
view. Hence the main focus should be on improving the
7 TUR 2080 3615 4365 6640 8300 reliability of ECO and PSH by applying proper
8 CON 4370 7450 8935 13400 16600 maintenance. Introducing inspection and maintenance
interval at 75% reliability level, prior to failure of the
In order to achieve 90% reliability (R = 0.90) in subsystems will improve the MTBF. PSH and FUR are
case of ECO, maintenance should be carried out before critical from maintainability point of view, hence
471 hours of operation. The reliability-based time special attention should be provided for improvement of
interval for maintenance [11] is calculated on the basis their maintainability i.e. reduction of MTTR by proper
of the operating characteristics of the power plant where resource allocation. Therefore availability of the
cost data is neglected. This maintenance interval may subsystems as well as of the whole power plant will
be used for inspection, repair, servicing, condition increase by the improvement in MTBF and subsequent
monitoring or replacement depending upon the safety reduction in MTTR.
implications, cost–benefit considerations and nature of
the failure. In order to achieve 90% reliability the
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