Reliability Analysis of Power Equipment in a Combined-Cycle Power Plant

07/02/2021

In accordance with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defined by ONU, one of the goals is to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. This thesis aims to contribute in improving the reliability of energy, in order to comply with the expectations set by ONU. Focusing on the power equipment of a combined-cycle power plant, three types of reliability and availability assessment studies were performed: component substitution, influence and addition. The original reliability and availability of the power plant was computed and used as reference standard case (SC). Additionally, a preventive maintenance study is performed for four distinct frequencies. The methodology applied in these studies was a combination of three methods: Reliability Block Diagram, Markov Chains and Monte Carlo Simulation. Regarding results, in the component substitution study, a simulation focusing on the replacement of classic circuit breakers by electronic ones, results in an 22% improvement of the SC’s total mean reliability(TMR). Concerning the component influence study, the redundant transformers were analyzed, considering the following cases: removal of the redundant transformers and usage of the redundant transformers in standby. The first, lead to a decrease of TMR of 35%, while the latter outperformed it 7%, both comparing with the SC. The component addition study, where a SVC was added to the original power plant scheme, is outperformed by the SC in TMR by 4%. Regarding the preventive maintenance study, the TMR is improved by 54%,50%,40% e 28%,for the annual,biennial,5-in-5 years and 10-in-10 years frequencies, respectively.

Authors in the community:

• 

  G

  Gonçalo Filipe Monteiro Lucas Júdice Crespo

  ist425367

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  A

  Andrés A. Zúñiga

  ist190913

• 

  J

  João Filipe Pereira Fernandes

  ist158045

electrical-engineering-electronic-engineering-information-engineering - Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico