PSR Lecture Notes 1
PSR Lecture Notes 1
7. RELIABILITY PRINCIPLES
7.1 FAILURE RATE
Since every piece of equipment in a system will eventually fail if it is in service
for a long period, there is a failure rate associated with each one. For some
items, the failure rate is quite significant while for others it could be extremely
low.
Failure rate is defined as the number of expected failures per unit in a given
time interval. It is just an expected value. In calculating the failure rate of a
group of units, the total operating time of the units should be used instead of
the chronological time. The formula is
Example 7.1
Ten transformers were tested for 500 h each and four transformers failed after
the following test
time periods:
one failed after 50 h
one failed after 150 h
two failed after 400 h
What is the failure rate for these types of transformers?
Total operating time of units
Example 7.2
Thirty motors were tested for 200 h. Five motors failed during the test. The
failures occurred after the following test times:
Motor 1 60 h
Motor 2 71 h
Motor 3 157 h
Motor 4 160 h
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Power System Reliability Lecture No.7 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim
Motor 5 170 h
What is the estimated failure rate?
Solution:
Total number of unit operating hours
= 60+71þ+157+160+170+25 x 200
= 5618 unit h
= 5/5168 unit h
= 0:00092 failures/h
The life of a man has the following three major distinguishable periods as
shown in Fig.7.1:
1. Infant mortality period
2. Useful life period
3. Wear-out period
Fig.7.1 Bathtub curve failure rate versus time for human life.
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Power System Reliability Lecture No.7 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim
Also the life of equipment has similar three major periods as shown in Fig.7.2:
1. Infant mortality period
2. Useful life period
3. Wear-out period
In the infant mortality period, the failure rate is high due to the presence
of weak spots from the manufacturing process such as poor
workmanship, substandard components, and so on. As these
weaknesses are manifested one by one by the stress of operation, the
failure rate keeps decreasing until a low constant level is reached.
The equipment then enters the useful life period where failures are due
to chance and occur at random times. Failures in this period are also
independent of the age of the equipment.
When the components of the equipment start to wear out. From this
time on, the failure rate rises rather rapidly due to deterioration.
Most reliability work deals with the useful life period when the failure rate is
constant and the exponential distribution applies. one of the several possible
distributions.
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Power System Reliability Lecture No.7 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim
The reliability is the probability of not failing in a specified time interval. If the
original population is No and Nf of them fail after time t, leaving Ns surviving,
the reliability at time t which is the probability of surviving is
and
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Power System Reliability Lecture No.7 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim
Since we have
Example 7.3
Two hundred capacitors were installed and at the end of each year, the
number of surviving units was tallied.
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Power System Reliability Lecture No.7 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim
Based on these figures, what is the reliability of the capacitors for 5 years?
The annual reliability of Year 4 ? Assuming the reliability function is
exponential, that is, R (t) = e-t, what is the failure rate for this formula?
Solution:
Reliability for 5 years = 169/200 = 0:845
Example 7.4
Ten thousand new oil circuit reclosers (OCRs) are put in service. They have a
constant failure rate of 0.1 per year. How many units of the original 10,000 will
still be in service after 10 years? How many of the original will fail in Year 10?
Solution:
Probability of survival is given by
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Power System Reliability Lecture No.7 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim