WSEAS Transactions on Power Systems
Print ISSN: 1790-5060, E-ISSN: 2224-350X
Volume 9, 2014
Bottom-up Reliability Analysis of a Base Load Diesel Engine Driven Electric Power Unit
Authors: , ,
Abstract: Power systems are usually based on thermal-electric power units as they have several advantages, such as predetermined installation and operation cost, easy active and reactive power control and high reliability. The reliability of a thermal power unit is usually quantified by the Unavailability or Forced Outage Rate (F.O.R.) indicator expressing the unexpected and unforeseen failure rate. It can be calculated from fault data records obtained during diesel engine lifetime. However, a thermal electric power unit is a sophisticated system with several subsystems. In case of a diesel engine driven electric power unit the respective subsystems constituting the unit are diesel engine, electric generator, frequency controller, automatic voltage regulator, and the circuits of compressed air, oil, fuel, water cooling, air cooling etc. In this paper, the reliability analysis of a ship diesel engine power unit is carried out based on a bottom-up approach and the assumption of having constant expected failure rate and constant repair rates for each sub-system’s component. In this way, unavailability of diesel engine can be accurately determined and the most frequently malfunctioning parts of the unit can be identified so as proactive measures for increasing overall reliability of the engine could be decided.
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Pages: 327-340
WSEAS Transactions on Power Systems, ISSN / E-ISSN: 1790-5060 / 2224-350X, Volume 9, 2014, Art. #34