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Preface
The goal of this guideline is two fold: first, to show that there
are data and tools available to use to try to predict reliability of
systems and designs; and second, help cause (wider)
utilization of reliability prediction techniques early in project
development (especially in early phases of CPDEP) so
projects might better meet their financial and operating goals.
A third goal is to announce that we want to obtain reliability,
availability and maintainability (RAM) information from any part
of Chevron that might have such information available. We
want to develop a RAM database and ultimately want to be
able to use Chevron-based data in reliability prediction
projects.
Fine Print Note: The CRTC Machinery and Electrical Systems Team (M&ES) is interested in
spearheading and doing reliability prediction for machinery and electrical system designs. The group
has various tools for doing machinery and power system reliability evaluations. If you are interested in
reliability prediction for development of designs or system upgrades, please contact anyone within the
M&ES team for further discussion and information.
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ..........................................................................................................................2
OVERVIEW........................................................................................................................4
EXAMPLE..........................................................................................................................7
APPENDIX 1....................................................................................................................16
DATABASES: ...................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES:.................................................................................................................16
COMPUTER TOOLS: .........................................................................................................17
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
Overview
Reliability modeling (either assessment or prediction) is not a new way to evaluate project
designs and decisions, but it is an emerging way. Until recently, the methods and tools
that could be used for reliability evaluations have been extremely complex, too academic
(highly mathematical) or generally too costly to have wide, practical application. This,
together with the large amount of information that is needed to do a successful and useful
reliability study amounted to there being no economic advantage to doing reliability
analysis. Increases in personal computing power and simplification of tools have begun
to overcome the complexity of evaluations and will begin to allow reliability to be used
more readily in design and decision-making processes.
Chevrons work in the general area of reliability has been on multiple fronts. Foremost
have been a variety of efforts in maintenance and operations to monitor and evaluate the
condition or performance of equipment using reliability based techniques. This began
with the former IMI database and continues with work now to implement Computerized
Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) such as Meridium, MP2, etc. Utilizing
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems has generally caused better
application of Preventative Maintenance (PM) techniques. CMM-type systems also
support more advanced maintenance techniques such as Predictive Maintenance (PdM),
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) which may be
used more in the future.
Other work in the reliability area is going on in Upstream projects to evaluate the reliability
of various designs and project concepts (See Implementation GuideReliability
Modeling, Implementation Guide No. 17, March 1999, Neil Henry et. Al.). One area
where reliability modeling should be very useful is with subsea and deep water systems.
Because initial installation and later intervention is so costly, reliability modeling
techniques (in this case reliability prediction) could be used to help evaluate designs and
alternatives. Work toward the goal of doing reliability prediction in subsea and deepwater
is going on through Joint Industry Programs such as OREDA and MoBPTeCh. The
Subsea Power Electrical Equipment Demonstrator (SPEED) Project may also incorporate
reliability modeling techniques into its program.
Potential Integration
Chevrons efforts in reliability as mentioned above have centered on maintenance and
operations activities. Except for a few instances where reliability modeling has been used
in alternative and design development, reliability has been devoted to the near-term
resolution of equipment problems. The CRTC M&ES groups interest is in applying
reliability modeling and reliability prediction to the early stages of the CPDEP process so
that quantitative judgements can be made of electrical power system designs and
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Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
concepts. All systems however, not just electrical power systems, must meet the overall
availability requirements of a project.
Figure 2 shows the CPDEP Phases and shows where reliability analysis may be used
within Chevron.
In CPDEP Phases 1 and 2, reliability modeling and prediction is used to help evaluate
systems, combinations of systems, logistic and transportation issues, and large or costly
equipment sparing. Until such time as Chevron-based data becomes available, the data
for these analyses would need to come from published reports, databases and libraries.
Not having Chevron-based information now should not keep reliability prediction and
reliability analysis techniques from being used.
In CPDEP Phase 3, reliability modeling and prediction could be used in a more detailed
wayaimed more at the component, subsystem, or assembly level. Reliability modeling
could be used to evaluate one supplier of an assembly to another, to evaluate sparing a
particular component or not and to compare types of materials that might be used.
Further, contracts and purchase orders could be structured in a way that incorporates
reliability performance. In the future, information gathered from the CMM systems within
Chevron could be readily used along with library or database information to do the
modeling.
In CPDEP Phase 4 and 5, reliability is devoted more toward failure monitoring, reliability
improvements or reliability management processes. Gathered failure information is used
to improve repair materials, improve repair procedures and evaluate suppliers.
The CRTC M&ES group is interested in applying reliability modeling and prediction
techniques to projects that are in CPDEP phases 1, 2 and 3. A few tools are already
available for the computation portion of this work. Reliability, availability and
maintainability data (in a readily useable form) and skill levels applying the tools must
increase in order to economically do reliability modeling studies. However, reliability
modeling and prediction will become an important way of studying project alternatives in
the future.
The IEEE Gold Book also contains reliability data (RAM data) for most components of an
electrical system. The original data dates back to the 1960s and 1970s even though it
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
was reported in the 1980s. Work is going on now to update that reliability data and
include addition electrical and mechanical equipment to the database. This work will be
incorporate into the next issue of the IEEE Gold Book.
To aid the reliability modeling and prediction efforts, the CRTC M&ES group wants to
begin gathering RAM data into a database that can be readily used for reliability modeling
and studies. Initial RAM data will be based on the IEEE Gold Book and data from other
publications. To be most useful, the database needs to have Chevron site-specific
reliability data in it. We are interested in knowing if any business units have this type of
data available and are willing to share it with us.
For use in most reliability modeling programs, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and
Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) rates for individual pieces of equipment are needed.
The third tool is a software package from The Clockwork Group known as Electric
Network Reliability and Cost Optimizer, ENRiCO. This software uses Monte Carlo
simulation techniques for modeling large or complex electrical systems. This software
package is based on Clockworks SPAR simulation package and is streamlined for use
with electrical systems.
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
Spreadsheets have been the tool of choice for the small amount of reliability modeling
that has been done so far. However, they are limited to smaller, simpler systems. They
also are based on the assumption that failure rates are constant when in reality they are
not. A more sophisticated reliability computation tool was purchased to handled larger,
more complex systems and to be able to handle other types of failure rates.
Examples
To understand electrical system reliability analysis and what it does, it is useful to review
an example. The example below was hand calculated using an Excel spreadsheet and
techniques described in the IEEE Gold Book. This is the classic way and the way that
reliability prediction has been done in the past. The other tools mentioned in the text do
similar analysis and can evaluate systems with more complexity.
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
A Chevron Refinery was installing a new high-voltage substation to provide power to two
new medium-voltage substations. This new high-voltage substation would be the fifth
high-voltage substation installed at the refinery. One of the major objectives of the project
was to improve overall reliability of the refinery high-voltage system, in particular the
reliability of their high voltage transmission-line that forms a loop connecting the four
existing high-voltage substations. The concern was that the high-voltage (HV)
transmission-line requires periodic outages to perform maintenance, and while a section
of the loop is out-of service (11 days per year) the refinerys generation substation is
reduce to a single path for exporting power. Should a fault occur on the other half of the
HV transmission-line the refinery would suffer a significant loss of steam production and
process upset. Refer to sketch High-Voltage System Before.
Utility
Main SUB
Capacitors
Capacitors
To
SUB-1
Sub-2A
Sub-2B Sub-3
Gen SUB
Generation
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Reliability Prediction Guideline:
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Utility
Main SUB
Capacitors
Capacitors
Sub-1
Sub-4A
Sub-2A Central Sub
Sub-2B Sub-3
Sub-4B
Gen Sub
Generation
The new substation and transmission-line will ensure that the generation substation has a
redundant export pathways, even during periods of transmission line maintenance. While
the projects initial design will increase the HV System reliability, is it the most cost
effective way to do-so? To evaluate possible cost savings a reliability analysis of
alternate schemes was undertaken. It must be noted that this example focuses on the
reliability of only the HV system; however, reliability of the two connected medium-voltage
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
substations was also important to the refinery. A separate analysis of the medium voltage
substations was also completed, but for simplicity the analysis is not presented here.
Suffice it to say that this concurrent analysis affected design of the alternate HV system
configuration. After several iterations the configuration shown in sketch HV System
Alternate was selected for comparison to the original project design configuration.
Utility
Main Sub
Capacitors
Capacitors
Sub-1
Sub-2A
Sub-2B Sub-4A Sub-4B Sub-3
Gen Sub
Generation
High-Voltage System-Alternate
Each of the design configurations were simplified for the hand calculation analysis. The
simplified configurations are shown on sketch HV System Simplified. The following
assumptions were made:
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Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
The source bus is located at the point of interconnection to the utility grid.
Reliability is measured at the generation substation.
Impact of load substations on HV system reliability is neglected.
Main Sub
Main Sub
Main Sub
Main Sub
Main Sub
Bus-A
Sub-4A
Sub-4B
Sub-3
Sub-2A
Sub-2B
Central Sub
Bus-B
Gen Sub
Gen Sub
Gen Sub
Gen Sub
Gen Sub
= (Switch-Breaker-Switch)
(Switch-Switch-Breaker-
= Switch-Switch)
The sketch Reliability Components-1 shows all of the electrical components for a typical
leg of the simplified configuration, between the source bus and the analysis bus.
Reliability data for each component is required to perform the analysis. The data
requirements include mean time between failure (MTBF), and mean time to repair
(MTTR), also referred to as downtime per failure. Lastly, for transmission lines (or as
appropriate) data for the average routine maintenance downtime per year is required. A
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Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
complete set of reliability component sketches (total of five) was used to create the
reliability analysis spreadsheet, HV System Reliability Analysis. A detailed explanation
of the spreadsheets construction is beyond the scope of this example; however, a quick
review of the basic reliability formulas follows the spreadsheet summary.
Starting Point
Reliability Components-1
(Typical of 5)
This example utilizes two basic sets of reliability formulas. One set is used to analyze
series connected electrical components, and another set is used to analyze components
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
connected in parallel. The two sets of formulas are shown on Figure-1, Reliability
Analysis Overall Calculation and Comparison Sheet. The source of the formulas is the
IEEE Gold Book, IEEE Standard 493-1990. Figure-1 also shows the results of the final
reliability calculations for each of the three configurations studied. Not shown are the
supporting MS Excel worksheets that provide reliability data for each pathway that make-
up a portion of each configuration.
The following assumptions were made in creating the worksheets, and populating the
RAM table (component reliability data).
66kV System
w/Chevcentral
LSFO + Westhill 0.042705 17.7 23.4
Chevcentral 2.414044047 20.9 0.4
Parallel 0.00045485 9.6 2,198.5 0.999999502
6
Notes:
- Calculations are performed using formulas embeded within appropriate cells.
- Series component calculation formulas are:
- Calculated Failure Rate = fs ==1 + 2
December 2000
Reliability Prediction Guideline:
Electrical Systems Reliability
The outcome of the analysis shows that with the present configuration a mean time
between failure of 23 years is predicted. Likewise the analysis predicts that the planned
project will yield a MTBF of 2000 years, and the alternate configuration will yield a MTBF
of 250,000 years! We believe that the assumptions and steps required to simplify the
configurations for hand calculation serve to reduce the absolute accuracy of the analysis.
However, since the same simplification errors are common to each configuration
analyzed, we believe the individual results provide an adequate qualitative result, useful
for comparison of the various configurations. In other words, we believe the conclusions
that can be drawn from this analysis are that the planned project scope will yield a
significant increase in HV system reliability; however, the alternate design would yield
significantly more improvement. At this point an economic analysis would be used
finalize the configuration selection.
In this example the alternate configuration was estimated to reduce project costs by ten
percent, a significant savings.
December 2000
Reliability Opportunities Within Chevron
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4 PHASE 5
Figure 2
Grey shading
indicates where The most useful reliability assessments
reliability tools and used in CPDEP Phase 4 and 5 are
oriented to the component level and can
analysis could be Identify Identify Develop Alternatives be very detailed. The best data is what Operate and
Opportunities Execute
used. Alternatives has been gathered for a specific site for Evaluate
specific equipment.
CAPEX Equipment
Capital Expenditure Repair
Program
Databases:
ANSI/IEEE Standard 493 (IEEE Gold Book), Recommended Practice for the
Design of Reliable Industrial and Commercial Power Systems.
References:
Hahn, Gerald J. and Shapiro, Samuel S., Statistical Models in Engineering,
Wiley, 1967, 1994.
IEEE Tutorial Course Power System Reliability Evaluation, IEEE Pub. 82 EHO
195-8-PWR, March, 1982.
Ireson, W. Grant, Coombs, Jr., Clyde F., Moss, Richard Y.: Handbook of
Reliability Engineering and Management, McGraw-Hill, 1996.
Packard, Michael H., Design for Reliability Course, NASA Glenn Research
Center Office of Safety and Assurance Technologies, December, 1997.
Website: http://www-osma.lerc.nasa.gov/dfr/dfr/html