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Fundamentals of Reliability of Electric Power System and Equipment

Article · June 2011

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 Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

FUNDAMENTALS OF RELIABILITY OF
ELECTRIC POWER SYSTEM AND
EQUIPMENT
Engr. Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia
B.Sc. (Elect), M. ENG. (Elect), MBA (Mgt): FIIA, COREN, MIEEE, MCPN, MNCS

Department of Electrical Electronics Engineering,

Faculty of Engineering,
Evan Enwerem University (Former Imo State University)
e-mail: engranumakamc@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
Today, the electric power system consists of complex interconnected network which are prone to different
problems that militates against the reliability of the power system. Inadequate reliability in the power system
causes problems such as high failure rate of power system installations and consumer equipment, transient and
intransient faults, symmetrical faults etc. This paper provides an extensive review of the powers system and
equipment reliability and related failure patterns in equipment.
KEYWORDS
Reliability, Power system, Failure, Repair rate, Mean time between failures, Outage, Operating period, Mean
time to failure (MTTF), Mean down time, Interconnections, Probability, Availability, Unavailability, Network,
Series - parallel system, SAID, CAID, SAIFI, MAIFI,

1.0 INTRODUCTION:
Since the industrial evolution of man’s demand for and consumption of electric energy has increased
steadily. However, in order to meet the ever increasing demand for electric energy very complex power systems
have been built to satisfy the demand. This vast enterprise of supplying electrical energy present many
engineering problems that provides the engineer with a variety of challenges. Thus, successful operation of any
power system depends largely on the engineer ability and capability to provide reliable and uninterrupted
service to the loads. The reliability of power supply entails that the loads must be fed at a constant voltage and
frequency at all times. Practically, the load and frequency must be held within close tolerance so that the
consumer’s equipment and appliances may operate satisfactorily.
Another method of achieving reliability is to indulge into system reliability planning. This will ensure
proper evaluation of the entire system so that overall reliability measure can be taken. For accurate reliability,
each basic branch of the power system (i.e generation, transmission and distribution) should be separately
measured.
In planning the reliability of the power system, the reliability improvement should be considered. The
reliability improvement could be achieved by
(1) Use of better components and
(2) Provision of redundancy.
In generation, redundancy could be achieved by increasing the generation capacity. The redundancy in
transmission could be achieved by making the ties between stations and load centres stronger. For distribution
system, the use of better scheme and duplication of certain components ensure redundancy in the system.

2.0 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Sequel to wide and complex interconnected network of transmission lines linking generators and loads
into large integrated system, it becomes difficult to achieve perfect reliability or adequate reliability in the power
system. Given that this is so, the problem of the study put as a question is: How dose reliability effect electric
power system and equipment? So, it is imperative to understand the fundamental of reliability and it effects on
power system and machines.

3.0 CONCEPT OF RELIABILITY

The ease of an equipment (device or component) to perform effectively and efficiently for a particular
period of time, under a specified condition in a sine-qua-non in its usage.

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 Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

DEFINITION 1
Reliability can be defined as the probability that a device, component system or an equipment will
function under specified conditions for a given period of time. This definition as applied to engineering devices
revolves round four basic determinants viz: probability, performance, condition and time. Let us assume that the
reliability of a change over device is 80% over a period of 100 hours under the ambient temperature of 600 F.
The 80% indicates the probability that the device would operate at rated level without breaking down and this
probability is bound to change with the specified condition and period of time. Power system reliability is
concerned with the degree to which elements in a bulk system perform within acceptable standards. It has to do
with the total electric interruptions. In power system, the following reliability indices are considered:
(1) The amount of power interrupted.
(2) Load connected
(3) Frequency of interruptions.
(4) Number of consumers and
(5) Duration of interruption.
From the basic definition of reliability stated above, probability is easily the most important
determinant factor. The reliability R, also involves time. If T is the time to failure, the reliability that the
equipment will not fail before time.
R (t) = P (T>t) ----------------------------------------------------------- (1)
The probability of an equipment surviving under failure environment. Generally, extent governs by probability
are generally connected mathematically by an exponential formula:
R = e-λt ------------------------------------------------------------- (2)
Where:
R = Reliability
e = Exponential
λ = Failure rate
t = Time
That is, the probability of an equipment surviving a time t under failure environment. If the failure rate of an
equipment is 25% per 100 hours.
The reliability can be expressed in percentage as 7.5 or 0.75 per 100
10
hours. The failure rate would be 2.5 or 0.25 per 100 hours. Therefore,
10
R = (1 – λt) -------------------------------------------------------- (3)
When we measure reliability and failure rate as percentage, we obtain
R = (100 – λt) --------------------------------------------------------------- (4)
When dealing with equipment or system, λ is more appropriate than number component failure, being simply
the average number of faults per hour. Then the reliability for a time is
R = e-λt
-t
m ------------------------------------------------------------------------(5)
R = e
Where:
m = MTBF
This is depicted in Fig. 1.1 below.

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 Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

1.0

0.8

1
m
R =e
0.6
Reliability R

0.4

0.2

1m 2m 3m

Time 1

Fig. 1.1 Reliability Curve

4.0 INDICES FOR MEASURING RELIABILITY OF POWER SYSTEM

Reliability can be measured in by the frequency, duration and magnitude of adverse effect on electric
supply. As defined in IEEE Standards, the three most common tools include:

(1) System Average Interruption duration Index (SAIDI): Is designed to provide information about the
average time, the customer’s are interrupted. This system is commonly referred to as consumer minutes
of interruption or customer hours. SAIDI is indicates the sum of the restoration time for each
interruption event times, the number of interrupted customers for each interruption event divided by the
total number of customers.

(2) Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI): This is the sum of customer interruption
duration divided by the total number of customer interruptions. It is average time need to restore
service to average interrupted customers.

(3) System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI): Is the average frequency per customers
who were interrupted with a specified period of time. Mathematically, it is the total number of
interrupted customers divided by the total number of customers utilizing the electricity.

(4) Momentary Average Interruption Frequency Index (MAIFI): This is a reliability index that
considers momentary interruptions. It is equated to the total number of customers momentarily
interrupted divided by the total number of consumers.

5.0 RELIABILITY MEASURED AS A PROBABILITY

Reliability and failure that occur during useful life of equipment dependent on chance. Reliability
expresses the probability that the equipment will function normally under specified condition and within a
particular period of time. Probability expresses the chance of a certain event happening. For instance, over the
years, it has been found out that landslide occur on 3rd march in every six years. The probability that landslide
will occur on 3rd march next year can be said to be one in six,
I-e 1 , or 16.7%
6
Thus, probability can be quoted as a number or as a percentage. But it can never be greater than one. Or 100
percent, because this figures represent absolute certainty that an event will occur.
If an equipment has a reliability of 80% for a 100 hour period. It implies that the equipment is operated
for 100 hours, eight times out of ten it will function without failure. The remaining two times out of ten will fail.

6.0 ELEMENTS OF RELIABILITY

DEFINITION 2

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 Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

Failure: The failure of a component, unit or equipment is the inability of a component to perform its intended
function at a particular time under specified operating conditions. A failure could be due to loss of output,
change in output, deviation from specification value. Adequate reliable depend upon the equipment failure.

DEFINITION 3
Failure Rate: The equipment failure of a unit, component is the number of failure per unit time. It is denoted by
λ. Also, the equipment is the number of unit failures divided by unit available during which they occur. It is
often quoted as the percentage of failures in a given time.

DEFINITION 4
Repair Rate: Is the number of repairs per unit time. Its symbol is μ.

DEFINITION 5
Outage: Is the state of the device when it is not operating due to voluntary or involuntary action outage may
occur due to interruption. This is an outage breakdown or isolation of subsystem.

DEFINITION 6
Forced Outage: Due to emergency condition. It can occur due to human error, improper operation or automatic
trip.
DEFINITION 7
Scheduled Outage: Occur due to deliberate action eg. During maintenance, repairs and services.

DEFINITION 8
Momentary Outage: Is an outage that occurs due to closing and clearing temporary faults.

7.0 EQUIPMENT FAILURE PROFILE

It has been found out that equipment and component follow a familiar pattern of failure during their life
span. When the failure rate is plotted against time of service, a graph popularly known as “Bathtub” curve is
shown as depicted in fig1.0. The curve shows three district region or stages in the total life span of an equipment
or components, viz.

Failure Early Failure Increasing Failure

Constant Failure Rate
Rate Rate

Infants Mortality Useful Life Wear Out

Time of Service
Fig.2. Equipment Failure Profile - Bath Tub Curve

(1) Infant Mortality (or Debugging Region): This is the initial operating of the equipment. During this
period, failure rate is high due to manufacturing errors, design errors, misuse or misapplication and
other identifiable problems. However, it is expected that these problems are noted, debugged and
removed quickly. Through produce development, differentiation, innovation etc. So the curve can be
seen declining rapid.

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(2) Useful Life (or Normal Operation Region): This is an interesting period in the life of the equipment.
Failures lowest occur at random, and the same at all time. Failure may occur due to poor operation,
accident or poor maintenance. The failures at this stage could be reduced or avoided by good control of
operation and adoption of good maintenance methods.

(3) Wear Out ( Or Old Age Region):This region shows rising failure rate due to old age, weakness and
wear out. This period is manifested toward the tail end of the equipment life span. Failure rate at this
period could be reduced by replacement of component parts and adoption of preventive maintenance.
In fact, the time scale levels and lengths of regions vary from equipment to equipment and component
to component.

8.0 ESSENCE OF EQUIPMENT PROFILE:

The essence of understanding equipment failure profile is to:
(a) Help in determining the best time to sell or buy equipment and other secondhand values.
(b) It also helps to estimate the parameters that affect the equipment profile.
(c) It provides essential data for producing the equipment reliability.
The probability distribution for each of three stages can be selected from WEIBULL DISTRIBUTION,
which is expressed as:
λ (t) = K t β -1 ……………………………………………………………….(6)
for t > 0
Where:
λ (t) = Failure rate
K and β = Constants.
β>1 = indicates increase in failure rate with time
(Wear out period)
β=1 = Denotes that failure rate is constant as in (Useful life).
O< β<1 = Failure rate decreases (Infant mortality)

9.0 INDICES OF RELIABILITY OF EQUIPMENT

It has been noted that reliability is the ability of a product to perform without failure, a specified
function, under given condition and for a given period of time. This ability can be expressed as a probability
which attempts to forecast the failure pattern of the system. In many cases, it is convenient to specify the
reliability of the system by some parameters which indicate the failure rate of such a system or equipment and
also independent upon the operating time. The parameters made it possible compare performance between
different systems with various operating periods. Commonly used parameters include:
(a) Mean time between failures (MTBF)
(b) Mean time to failure (MTTF)

10.0 MEAN TIME BETWEEN FAILURES (OR MEAN CYCLE TIME) The concern of system
operators is usually the length of time that a system will run without failure. This is regarded as the measure of
its reliability. For repairable system, the time between failure is the critical characteristics, while for non-
repairable system the time to failure is the critical measure.
MTBF can be obtained by running an equipment for predetermined length of time under specified
conditions and calculating the average length of time between failures is exponential, thus, MTBF is the mean or
average time between consecutive failure. Mathematically, MTBF is expressed as:
MTBF = Ot ----------------------------------------------------- (7)
Fn
= Total operating hours
Numbers of failure
Where:
Ot = Total operating period
Fn = Number of Failure
For example, if the item fails five times in an operating period which spans 50,000 hrs the MTBF is
simply 10,000 hrs i.e. MTBF
For test, MTBF = OT In ------------------------------------------------------ (8)
FT
Where:
OT = Total Operating hrs of all items.
FT = Total Number of failures that occur.
In = Number of items

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 Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

The above expression implies that if the test involves a number of identical pieces of equipment
operating under similar condition in various system.
Also MTBF can be expressed in terms of failure rate λ, which is the number of failures per unit time.
MTBF = 1 ----------------------------------------------------- (9)
λ
Conversely, the failure rate of an equipment can be expressed in terms of MTBF as follows:
λ = 1 ------------------------------------ (10)
MTBF
A failure –free operation for the specified period of time indicates the distribution of time between
failures. The frequency of occurrence of a particular MTBF relative to others can be seen to represent an
estimate of probability of survival, PS and for a constant failure rate, λ, the reliability. So,
P(S) = R = e –λt --------------------------------------(11)
Where:
R = System Reliability
t = Specified period of failure – free operation.
λ = Failure Rate. = 1
MTBF

11.0 MEAN TIME TO FAILURE (MTTF)

Is applicable for throw – away items or components that are not repairable such as fuses, resistors, capacitors,
thermionic values, etc. when components are subjected to a condition for a specific period of time.
MTTF = TL ------------------------------------------------------(12)
Fn
(Subjecting components to specific condition).
= Length of test time
Number of failure
Where:
TL = Length of test time
Fn = Number of failures
When a specified number of components or specimen are individually stress to failure under predetermined
conditions

MTTF = 1 i=n

Where:
η
ΣT
i =1
i
-------------------------------- (13)

Ti = Length of time taken by i th specimen to fail

η = Total number of specimen.
It is the average time which a unit will run between failures. The mean time between failures (M.T.B.F) is
denoted by m. Similarly, MTTF can be expressed in terms of failure rate, λ as follows:
MTTF = 1 ---------------------------------------------- (14)
λ
λ = 1 ---------------------------------------------- (15)
MTTF
12.0 MEAN DOWN TIME (MEAN REPAIR TIME)
This is the reciprocal of the repairs rate, μ. It is mathematically expressed as:
1 = ----------------------------------------------------- (16)
μ t μ e dt
Where: o

ƒ
dt = –μt
Time Interval.

13.0 RELIABILITY OF COMMON SYSTEM CONFIGURATIONS

A system as noted earlier is composed of components that work together to form a configuration and
execute a goal. The following are possible system configurations.

DEFINITION 9
(a) Series System: A system in which all the components are arrange in series. A series system fails
whenever one of the components fails. If a serried system consists of reliability R1. R2 - R3. R4
……..Rn. The system reliability Rs by
Rs = R1. R2 . R3. R4 ……..Rn.

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 Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

= e-λ1t. e-λ2t . e-λ3t . e-λ4 ….. e-λnt …………………. (17)

OR
n
Σ
Rs = e λ t …………………………………………….…….. (18)
Where: t =1 i
λ1, λ2, λ3, λ4, …………………. λn are the failure rates of the component.

DEFINITION 10
(b) Parallel System: Is a system in which constituent components are connected in parallel. A parallel
system fails when all the components have failed. In parallel system, the system reliability is expressed
as:
RS = 1 – e – λi t ………………………………………….…. (19)
OR
Rs = 1 - n ( I – e – λi t) ……………………… (20)

Σi =the
In parallel system, the chance of all t components failing simultaneously is expressed as:
Qs = Q1 Q2 ……….. Qn …………………………………………. (21)
Rs = 1 - Qs ……………………………………………..…………. (22)

DEFINITION 11
(c) Parallel Series System / Series – Parallel System: A system that consist of components arranged in
parallel and series combination. Their failure pattern is complex depending on the arrangement of the
components of the system.

DEFINITION 12
(d) Network: Is interconnection of components to form a configuration. The failure pattern of a network
system is more complex and determined by the structure.

14.0 AVAILABILITY / UNAVAILABILITY OF EQUIPMENT

The reliability of equipment cannot be feasible without the availability of such an equipment. An
equipment should be fit and ready to perform before you talk about how adequate it can perform.
DEFINITION 13
The variability of an equipment is the ease by which the equipment can perform within a planned
period of time.
It is interesting to note that the reliability of an equipment tell us that the equipment can probably do
certain job within a specified period of time, under a given condition without breaking down, one would be
interested to know how fit and ready the equipment will be and how much time will be available within the
planned period.
Assume that the equipment is actually in working order for μ hours, it is down for D hours while the
total time is T hours. Then,
T = μ + D = Availability --------------------------------------------- (23)
The availability ratio,
AR = μ ---------------------------------------------------------------(24)
μ+D
The equipment availability is determined by maintainability and reliability. Maintainability is a reasonable
factor which requires time and resources to restore the equipment in case of any failure. Let the average repair
time T be considered, then the equipment availability,
Av = MTBF ----------------------------------------------------------- (25)
MTBF + T

DEFINITION 14
Unavailability is situation whereby the equipment is not available for job. By inference unavailability
ratio.
NR = D ------------------------------------------------------------- (26)
μ+D

CONCLUSION

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 Anumaka, Michael Chukwukadibia / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

Adequate reliability in the power system and equipment is a sine-qua-non since it ensures efficient and
effective operation of electrical equipment and electro-technical components, eliminate or reduce high failure
rate and maintenance.
However, the reliability of equipment and components could be improved or increased, but this will
lead to increase in complexity, costs, research, introduction of new technology and methods.
REFERENCES
[1] Carter, A.D.S. (1970): Mechanical Reliability, Macmillan, London
[2] Cluley, J.C. (1974): Electronic Equipment Reliability, Macmillan, London.
[3] Endrenyi J. (1978): Reliability Modeling in Electrical Power Systems, John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
[4] Garland, P. J. and Strainer, F. W. (1970): Modern Electronic Maintenance Principles, Pergamon Press Ltd, London.
[5] Kelly, A and Harris, M. J. (1978): Management of Industrial Maintenance, Newness –Butterworth’s, London.
[6] Lewis R. (1970): An Introduction to Reliability Engineering Manufavture.
[7] Okah – Avae (1996): The Science of Industrial Machinery & Systems Maintanance, Spectrum Books Ltd, Owerri.

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