Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 958e965

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Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries

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Development of a risk-based maintenance strategy using FMEA for a continuous

catalytic reforming plant
Yuqiao Wang, Guangxu Cheng*, Haijun Hu, Wei Wu
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Petrochemical facilities and plants require essential ongoing maintenance to ensure high levels of reli-
Received 17 November 2011 ability and safety. A risk-based maintenance (RBM) strategy is a useful tool to design a cost-effective
Received in revised form maintenance schedule; its objective is to reduce overall risk in the operating facility. In risk assess-
24 April 2012
ment of a failure scenario, consequences often have three key features: personnel safety effect, envi-
Accepted 21 May 2012
ronmental threat and economic loss. In this paper, to quantify the severity of personnel injury and
environmental pollution, a failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) method is developed using
Keywords:
subjective information derived from domain experts. On the basis of failure probability and consequence
Risk-based maintenance
Fault tree analysis
analysis, the risk is calculated and compared against the known acceptable risk criteria. To facilitate the
Failure modes and effects analysis comparison, a risk index is introduced, and weight factors are determined by an analytic hierarchy
Continuous catalytic reforming plant process. Finally, the appropriate maintenance tasks are scheduled under the risk constraints. A case study
of a continuous catalytic reforming plant is used to illustrate the proposed approach. The results indicate
that FMEA is helpful to identify critical facilities; the RBM strategy can increase the reliability of high-risk
facilities, and corrective maintenance is the preferred approach for low-risk facilities to reduce main-
tenance expenditure.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction that maintenance costs comprise 20%e30% of the operating budget

Petrochemical industries and refineries involve a wide range of
flammable, explosive and toxic materials that are usually handled
at elevated temperatures and/or pressures. Faults or failures within
the facilities may lead to serious consequences because of the
existence of these hazardous chemicals. Thus, a high level of reli-
ability and safety is a critical issue for the success of petrochemical
plants and refineries.
High safety and reliability levels rely heavily on proper main-
tenance activities that will reduce the incidence of unexpected
breakdowns and unscheduled downtimes (Alsyouf, 2007). To
ensure the smooth running of a plant, it is essential that mainte-
nance activities consume a large amount of manpower and material
resources. As the requirements of safety and reliability increase, the
resources required in maintenance have also grown. It is not
uncommon in refineries for the maintenance department to be the
largest department, often comprising approximately 30% of the
total manpower and with a significant operational budget second
only to energy costs (Dekker, 1996). Tan and Kramer (1997) stated
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 29 8266 5578; fax: þ86 29 83234781.
E-mail address: gxcheng@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (G. Cheng).
in the chemical industry. With regard to the problem of how to use
available resources in the most effective way, cost-effective main-
tenance strategies are both vital and necessary.
Over the past few decades, maintenance strategies have been
through a major metamorphosis from primitive break down
maintenance to the more sophisticated strategies like condition-
based maintenance and reliability-centered maintenance (Patton,
1983; Rao, 1996; Rausand, 1998). The risk-based maintenance
(RBM) strategy, which emerged in the 1990s, provides a new vision
for asset integrity management (Backlund & Hannu, 2002;
Farquharson, & Choquette, 2002; Harnly, 1998; Kjellen, Motet, &
Hale, 2009; Kumar, 1998; Montgomery, & Berratella, 2002). The
RBM strategy uses the risk level as a criterion to plan maintenance
tasks and has received increasing attention from researchers in
recent years.
Apeland and Aven (2000) presented a Bayesian method for RBM
optimization as an alternative to the probabilistic framework.
Jovanovic (2003) reviewed practices and trends in the area of risk-
based inspection and maintenance in power and process plants by
comparing European and US studies. Arunraj and Maiti (2007)
reviewed research on RBM and risk assessment technologies. A
risk-based inspection and maintenance procedure was developed
and applied to an oil refinery by Bertolini, Bevilacqua, Ciarapica,

0950-4230/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2012.05.009
 Y. Wang et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 958e965
and Giacchetta (2009). Khan’s team has made significant contri-
butions to the development of the RBM strategy. Khan and Haddara
(2003) proposed a complete framework for the RBM strategy, in
which the probability of the unexpected event was determined
using fault tree analysis and the consequences involved the esti-
mation of system performance loss, financial loss, human health
loss and environmental and/or ecological loss. On the basis of
comparison results between the calculated risk and acceptable risk
criteria, intervals of preventive maintenance for key equipment
were obtained. To illustrate its applications in detail, the RBM
strategy has also been applied to a number of situations including
offshore oil and gas processing facilities, an ethylene oxide
production plant, and a power plant (Khan & Haddara, 2004a; Khan
& Haddara, 2004b; Krishnasamy, Khan, & Haddara, 2005). Arunraj
and Maiti (2010) used risk as a criterion to select the appropriate
maintenance policy and the results showed that condition-based
maintenance was suitable for high-risk equipment and corrective
maintenance for low-risk equipment. To achieve the minimum risk
for the expected life of a liquefied natural gas plant, a risk-based
shutdown management strategy was considered (Keshavarz,
Thodi, & Khan, 2012).
In an RBM strategy, the risk of a particular failure scenario is
defined as the product of likelihood and consequences. These
consequences have three key features: personnel safety effect,
environmental threat and economic loss. Although economic loss
can be directly measured in terms of money, it is a rather sensitive
matter to assign financial cost to personnel injury and environ-
mental pollution. Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is
a widely used, effective tool to identify and assess how potential
failures can affect the performance of a process. In the present
paper, to judge the severity of the personnel safety effect and
environmental threat, a semi-quantitative method of FMEA is
developed based on subjective information derived from experts.
The failure probability of a facility can be calculated using
a Weibull distribution model; then the risk can be calculated by
multiplying failure probability with consequences. In risk evalua-
tion, the concept of a risk index is introduced to facilitate the
comparison between the calculated risk and the known acceptable
risk criterion; thus three risk indexes can be obtained. To integrate
the three risk indexes into a single index, weight factors that
represent the relative importance of the three consequence features
are determined using an analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Finally,
proper maintenance tasks are scheduled under the risk constraints.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2
proposes the framework of the improved RBM strategy; a case
study of a continuous catalytic reforming (CCR) plant is presented in
Section 3 to demonstrate the detailed procedures of the method-
ology; and finally, conclusions are presented in Section 4.
2. Risk-based maintenance (RBM) strategy
The RBM strategy is a quantitative approach integrating reli-
ability analysis and risk assessment to develop a cost-effective
maintenance policy. Generally the RBM strategy consists of the
following four modules: identification of a system scope, risk
assessment, risk evaluation and maintenance planning.
2.1. Identification of a system scope
Refineries and petrochemical plants usually contain large
quantities of pressure vessels, compressors, pumps, pipelines and
other various instruments. Considering the whole plant as
a system, it can be generally divided into several subsystems
according to its operational characteristics. The subsystems are
usually connected in three different ways, namely by series, parallel
959
and standby structures. This applies for a subsystem as well, which
consists of several facilities. The facility is regarded as the basic
element of risk assessment and evaluation.
2.2. Risk assessment
Risk can be seen as a natural consequence of refinery and
petrochemical production activities. It is impossible to eliminate all
risks, so risks are reduced to an acceptable level. Risk assessment
requires the application of the appropriate techniques to analyze
the risk of an unexpected failure scenario, which involves the
estimation of the likelihood (failure probability) and consequences
(severity of the undesired failure scenario).
2.2.1. Estimation of failure probability
A failure scenario occurs when the plant fails to meet the
production requirements, including break down, reduction of
output, inferior quality of output and even the occurrence of acci-
dents such as fire and explosion. The failure scenario can be iden-
tified according to the process features, operational conditions and
the safety management status of the plant. Considering a failure
scenario as a top event, a fault tree is constructed to delineate the
ways in which the top event can occur. Logic signs including “AND”
and “OR” gates are employed to graphically represent the relations
among the top event, intermediate events and basic events.
The failure probability of each basic event can be determined by
statistics regarding adequate data associated with faults and acci-
dents, which are mainly collected from the operation, accident and
maintenance records of industrial plants (Hoyland & Rausand,
1995). When the failure probability of each basic event is known,
the failure probability of the top event can be calculated using an
AND/OR gate.
Y
n
PðANDÞ ¼ Pi (1)
i¼1
Y
n
PðORÞ ¼ 1  ð1  Pi Þ (2)
i¼1
where P is the failure probability of the top event, Pi denotes the
failure probability of the basic event i, and n is the number of basic
events associated with the AND/OR gate.
2.2.2. Consequence analysis
The objective of this procedure is to quantify the potential
consequences of the failure scenario. When a failure scenario
occurs, the consequences often have three key features: personnel
safety effect (C1), environmental threat (C2) and economic loss (C3).
Economic loss can be evaluated directly in terms of money;
however, it is a sensitive issue how to assign financial costs to
health or loss of life and environmental pollution. It should be
noted that a facility is prone to several failure modes, and each
failure mode may lead to different consequences. Therefore, FMEA
is an appropriate method to analyze different modes and their
consequences of failures.
The FMEA methodology is one of the risk analysis techniques
recommended by international standards such as Society of Auto-
motive Engineers, US Military of Defense, and Automotive Industry
Action Group. FMEA is organized around failure modes, which link
the cause and effect of failures. FMEA takes three parameters into
consideration which are usually evaluated through easily inter-
preted linguistic expressions, each correlated to a score rage
(minimum of 1 to a maximum of 10): Severity (S), Occurrence (O),
and Detection (D). The Severity measures the seriousness of the
960 Y. Wang et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 958e965

effects of a failure mode; the Occurrence is related to the proba-
bility of a failure mode occurring; the Detection indicates a failure’s
visibility that is the attitude of a failure mode to be identified by
controls and inspections. Then the Risk Priority Number (RPN) is
obtained from the product of these three parameters to measure
risk and severity of a failure mode.
where MC is the maintenance cost, Cf is the fixed cost of the failure
scenario ($US), Cv is the variable cost per hour of downtime ($h1),
DT is the downtime, which includes the total time the plant would
be out of service as a result of the failure scenario (hours).
The production loss (PL) can be estimated by multiplying
downtime (DT) and production loss per hour (PLPH, $h1).

RPN ¼ S  O  D (3) PL ¼ DT,PLPH (7)

In the presented RBM strategy, the purpose of perfoming FMEA
is to identify every facility’s failure modes and their effects
(Severity) concerning personnel safety effect and envirionmental
threat based on subjective information derived from the relevant
experts. In this case, it is reasonable to assume that a failure mode is
almost certain to be detected once it occurs under current inspec-
tions, which corresponds to a Detection score of “1”; thus the RPN
would be in accordance with the concept of risk in RBM which is
defined as the product of likelihood and consequences.
According to domain experts, Severity can be divided into five
levels: minor, low, moderate, high and very high; each level is
described by linguistic terms in detail (Table 1). The FMEA is per-
formed to identify failure modes of every facility; then the experts
give individual judgments on the severity level of the personnel
safety effect and environmental threat for each failure mode based
on their own knowledge and experience, which are expressed as
scores in Table 1.
The personnel safety effect and environmental threat of a failure
scenario can be calculated using following rule: the most serious
consequence obtained from all the failure modes is assigned as the
total failure consequence.
 
C1 ¼ max C1j
 
C2 ¼ max C2j
where C1 and C2 represent the personnel safety effect and the
environmental threat of a failure scenario, respectively; C1j is the
personnel safety effect of j th failure mode; and C2j is the envi-
ronmental threat of j th failure mode.
Economic loss is a combination of the maintenance cost and
production loss. In industrial petrochemical plants, maintenance
costs typically consists of both fixed costs (e.g., the cost of
consumables and raw materials, testing costs and the costs of parts
replacement) and variable costs (e.g., labor costs and rental cost for
equipment and tools).
MC ¼ Cf þ DT,Cv
The possible risk in a failure scenario involves three risk parts:
personnel safety risk (R1), environmental risk (R2) and economic
risk (R3); each can be calculated by multiplying the failure proba-
bility and the corresponding consequences.
2.3. Risk evaluation
The purpose of risk evaluation is to judge whether the calculated
risk is acceptable. The acceptable risk criteria for personnel safety
effect and environmental threat should be determined by experts,
and based on the relevant laws and regulations and the actual
conditions of the enterprise. In addition, the acceptable risk crite-
rion for economic loss can be determined based on the yearly
maintenance expenditure of the valuated plant.
In order to facilitate the comparison, a risk index (RI) is intro-
duced, which equals the calculated risk divided by the acceptable
risk criterion. The risk index of the three risk parts should be
integrated into a single index. Thus, weight factors that respectively
represent the relative importance of the three consequence
features are required.
The AHP is a popular multiple criteria decision-making tool, and
has been used in almost all applications related to decision-making
(4) (Ho, 2008; Vaidya & Kumar, 2006). Its basic principal is that the
weight factors are derived from comparing the importance of
(5) factors two at a time. In the present paper, AHP is used to determine
the values of three weight factors: personnel safety effect and
environmental threat are ranked as being more important than
economic loss. On the basis of the three weight factors, the risk
index can be calculated as follows:
RI ¼ w1  RI1 þ w2  RI2 þ w3  RI3 (8)
where w1, w2 and w3 are weight factors of personnel safety effect,
environmental threat and economic loss, respectively; RI is the risk
index of a failure scenario.
If the calculated risk index exceeds 1.0, the facility is considered
as a critical facility; managers should pay more attention to the
(6) critical facilities.

2.4. Maintenance planning

Table 1
Description of personnel safety effect and environmental threat. To reduce the risk level of critical facilities, an appropriate
Consequence Level Score Description maintenance strategy should be designed. Both the type of main-
Personnel Minor 1e2 Less or no effect tenance and maintenance interval should be decided; in the
safety effect Low 3e4 Minor injury or illness present study we shorten the maintenance interval to reduce the
Moderate 5e6 Moderate injury or illness failure probability. First, the maximum acceptable failure proba-
(can recovery)
bility of a critical facility is determined according to the acceptable
High 7e8 Debilitating injury or serious
long-term illness risk criterion; then the appropriate maintenance interval can be
Very high 9e10 Death scheduled having regard to the reliability constraints.
Environmental Minor 1e2 Less or no effect
threat Low 3e4 Minor pollution by release
3. Case study: a continuous catalytic reforming plant
of process medium
Moderate 5e6 Moderate pollution that can be
treated by local department 3.1. Process description
High 7e8 Major pollution that can be dealt
by regional authorities A CCR plant is presented as a case study to illustrate the detailed
Very high 9e10 Acute pollution that require particular
attention of national authorities
applications of the proposed RBM strategy. CCR is an important
petrochemical process to convert low-octane gasoline bending
 Y. Wang et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 958e965 961

Fig. 1. Process flow diagram of a CCR plant.

components into high-octane components in the presence of
a catalyst under appropriate conditions of temperature, pressure
and time. A simplified flow diagram of an existing industrial plant is
shown as Fig. 1. The plant consists of two heat exchangers, four
reforming furnaces (Furnace A, C and D are contained in
a combined furnace H201ACD, and Furnace B is a solo furnace
H201B), four series-connected moving-bed reformers, a catalyst
regenerator and other auxiliary facilities. Nearly 700,000 tones of
refined naphtha are processed per year. Considering the whole CCR
plant as a system, it can be divided into four subsystems according
to process characteristics; each subsystem consists of several
facilities as shown in Fig. 2.
To ensure the safety and high reliability of the plant, mainte-
nance activities are necessary. The plant usually halts production
for about 30 days to perform a major overhaul once every 3 years
even though no fault or failure has occurred; during the downtime
all the facilities are thoroughly examined and repaired. During the
operation cycle, corrective maintenance activities occur when
a facility breaks down; and preventive maintenance activities are
carried out at regular intervals in key facilities while they are
operating, its idea is to retain the key facilities in specific condition
(Phan & Wang, 1996). Preventive maintenance activities often
consist of a well-defined set of technical tasks, for example,
inspection, repair, replacement, cleaning, lubrication, adjustment,
and alignment. Normally, preventive maintenance is more effective
than corrective maintenance because it is always to keep the key
facilities in an available condition, so that large loss by unpredict-
able fails can be avoided. The purpose of this paper is to determine
the appropriate interval of periodic preventive maintenance using
the RBM strategy.
3.2. Risk assessment
Considering a situation where the “CCR system failed to perform
as required” as a top event, a fault tree is constructed (Fig. 3), in
which the failures of facilities are basic events.

Fig. 2. Subsystems and facilities of the CCR system.

962 Y. Wang et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 958e965

Fig. 3. Fault tree of the CCR system failure.

3.3. Failure probability of basic event 3.4. Consequence analysis

The two-parameter Weibull distribution is a general failure First, 15 experts were selected from the operation, maintenance
distribution, Eq. (9), which can be fitted to a wide range of failure and management departments of the CCR plant. Then FMEA was
processes (except those that increase at an exceptionally fast rate). used to identify the failure modes of each facility as listed in Table 3;
these 15 domain experts were asked to make their own judgments
 a1
a t on the severity of the personnel safety effect and environmental
lðtÞ ¼ , a>1; b>0 (9)
b b threat for each failure mode.
The opinions of the experts were obtained in an anonymous
where l(t) denotes the failure rate at time t, a is the shape manner. The various scenarios were conveyed to the experts via
parameter and b the scale parameter.
It is assumed that the facility failure process follows the two-
parameter Weibull distribution with a non-decreasing failure rate Table 2
l(t). The failure probability at a given time t can be determined from Parameters of the probability distribution function.
the cumulative distribution probability of the facility, Eq. (10). The Subsystem Facility Shape Scale MTBF Cumulative
mean time between failure (MTBF) can be found from Eq. (11). parameter a parameter /month distribution
b/month probability
  a 
t F(t) (during
FðtÞ ¼ 1  exp  (10) 1 year)
b
Reforming E201A 2.1751 20.7732 18.3967 0.2615
  reaction E201B 2.1751 20.7732 18.3967 0.2615
1 H201ACD 1.8267 17.5451 15.5953 0.3932
MTBF ¼ b,G 1 þ (11)
a H201B 2.0536 20.1409 17.8438 0.2920
R201 3.2659 17.5451 15.7204 0.2511
where G(x) is the gamma function. R202 3.2659 17.5451 15.7204 0.2511
The values of the two parameters a and b can be obtained from R203 3.2659 17.5451 15.7204 0.2511
R204 3.2659 17.5451 15.7204 0.2511
failure and maintenance records using maximum likelihood esti- Hydrogen K201 1.7765 12.8924 11.4696 0.5854
mations (Shin, Lim, & Lie, 1996). In our previous research, the recycling T201 2.8897 14.1356 12.5969 0.4636
probability distribution function of the reforming reaction unit of K202 A/Ba 2.2255 10.3058 9.1274a 0.2592a
the CCR plant was obtained by focusing on inadequate maintenance P202 A/Ba 1.7411 11.1343 9.9150a 0.2888a
Catalyst R301 1.9425 16.6722 14.7804 0.4102
(Hu, Cheng, Li, & Tang, 2009). In the present study, the two
regeneration
parameters a and b of Weibull distribution for facilities have been Separation of gas E202 2.0795 17.7460 15.7185 0.3581
revised as new operation data have been added. The cumulative and liquid D201 3.1255 27.2509 24.3797 0.0741
distribution probability during 1 year and MTBF of each facility can D204 2.1101 32.4832 28.7681 0.1151
now be calculated; the results are listed in Table 2. a
The facility is redundant; and the given time is 6 months.
 Y. Wang et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 958e965 963

Table 3
Risk of personnel safety effect and environmental threat.

Facility Failure mode Severity of consequences Personnel safety risk R1 Environmental risk R2

Personnel safety effect Environmental threat

E201A, E201B External leakage 5 5 4 4 1.3075 1.0460
Internal leakage 1 1
Scale formation of heat exchanger pipes 1 1
H201ACD, H201B Lining rupture of furnace hearth 4 9 3 6 3.5388, 2.6280 2.3592, 1.7520
Collapse of fire wall in hearth 4 4
Rupture of furnace tube 9 6
Local overheating of furnace tube 7 5
Too low thermal efficiency 1 1
R201, R202, R203, R204 Strength failure 2 5 2 4 1.2555 1.0044
Leakage of flange 5 4
Catalyst coking in reformer 1 1
Catalyst poisoning 1 1
Abnormal loss of catalyst 1 1
Too high temperature 1 1
K201 Imbalance turn of rotor 1 1 1 1 0.5854 0.5854
T201 Imbalance turn of rotor 1 1 1 1 0.4636 0.4636
K202 A/Ba Imbalance turn of rotor 1 1 1 1 0.2592a 0.2592a
P202 A/Ba Imbalance turn of rotor 1 1 1 1 0.2888a 0.2888a
R301 Leakage of flange 5 5 4 4 2.0510 1.6408
Catalyst coking in regenerator 1 1
Deformation of Johnson screen 1 1
Block of Johnson screen 1 1
Deviation of Johnson screen 1 1
E202 Block of heat exchanger pipes 1 1 1 1 0.3581 0.3581
Scale formation 1 1
D201 Scale formation 1 1 1 1 0.0741 0.0741
D204 Scale formation 1 1 1 1 0.1151 0.1151
a
The facility is redundant; and the given time is 6 months.

questionnaires. The experts gave score values for each failure (product of the CCR plant) and the production capacity per hour of
mode. The questionnaire responses were collected and reviewed, the plant. The results of the production losses and maintenance
then shared anonymously by the experts. The experts were also costs for each facility failure are given in Table 4.
able to revise their judgments. This process was repeated until
a consensus was reached among the experts. The personnel safety
3.5. Risk evaluation
risk and environmental risk was then calculated as the product of
the failure probability and consequence scores. The results are
Following discussion with domain experts based on the risk
listed in Table 3.
evaluation standards of Health Safety and Environment (HSE)
The fixed costs, variable costs and downtimes of the plants
management systsm of the CCR plant, the acceptable risk criteria of
(because of facility failures) were obtained from maintenance
the personnel safety effect and environmental threat can be set at
records. It is rare for two or more facilities within a subsystem to
1.2. Based on yearly maintenance expenditure and the production
break down at the same time. Therefore the production loss per
losses of the plant, the acceptable risk criterion of economic loss for
hour was obtained by identifying the price of the reformate
each of the four subsystems is calculated as $47,244, $23,622,
$47,244 and $23,622, respectively.

Table 4
Risk of economic loss.

Facility Production loss and maintenance cost Risk (during Table 5

1 year) R3/$ Risk evaluation results.
1 1
Cf/$ Cv/$h DT/hours PLPH/$h Consequence/$
Subsystem Facility RI1 RI2 RI3 RI Rank
E201A 3150 316 72 1968 167598 43827
E201B 3150 316 72 1968 167598 43827 Reforming reaction E201A 1.0896 0.8717 0.9277 0.9696 4
H201ACD 7874 316 72 1968 172322 67757 E201B 1.0896 0.8717 0.9277 0.9696 4
H201B 3937 316 72 1968 168385 49168 H201ACD 2.9490 1.9660 1.4342 2.2442 1
R201 3850 316 60 1968 140890 35377 H201B 2.1900 1.4600 1.0407 1.6616 2
R202 3850 316 60 1968 140890 35377 R201 1.0463 0.8370 0.7488 0.9014 5
R203 3850 316 60 1968 140890 35377 R202 1.0463 0.8370 0.7488 0.9014 5
R204 3850 316 60 1968 140890 35377 R203 1.0463 0.8370 0.7488 0.9014 5
K201 2152 158 24 1968 53176 46064 R204 1.0463 0.8370 0.7488 0.9014 5
T201 2152 158 24 1968 53176 24652 Hydrogen recycling K201 0.4878 0.4878 1.3178 0.6608 6
K202 A/Ba 2152 79 18 0 3574 926a T201 0.3863 0.3863 1.0436 0.5233 7
P202 A/Ba 2152 79 18 0 3574 1032a K202 A/B 0.2160 0.2160 0.0392 0.1792 10
R301 7874 316 48 1968 117506 48201 P202 A/B 0.2407 0.2407 0.0437 0.1996 9
E202 1575 158 24 984 28983 10379 Catalyst regeneration R301 1.7092 1.3673 1.0203 1.4303 3
D201 1575 158 24 984 28983 2148 Separation of gas E202 0.2984 0.2984 0.4394 0.3278 8
D204 1575 158 24 656 21111 2430 and liquid D201 0.0618 0.0618 0.0909 0.0678 12
D204 0.0959 0.0959 0.1029 0.0974 11
a
The facility is redundant; and the given time is 6 months.
964 Y. Wang et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 958e965

Table 6 thus an FMEA method was developed to determine the severity of

Preventive maintenance planning. the personnel safety effect and environmental threat, according to
Facility Maximum acceptable Calculated PM the opinions of domain experts. Using the risk as a criterion,
failure probability interval/months a proper maintenance strategy for each facility was determined. A
Heat exchanger (E201A) 0.2697 8.3 CCR plant was used as a case study to illustrate the detailed
Heat exchanger (E201B) 0.2697 8.3 procedures of the proposed methodology. The results show that the
Combined furnace (H201ACD) 0.1752 4.5
RBM strategy is a useful tool to plan a cost-effective maintenance
Solo furnace (H201B) 0.1757 6.0
Reformer (R201) 0.2786 9.6 strategy; preventive maintenance is the preferred approach for
Reformer (R202) 0.2786 9.6 high-risk facilities to increase reliability, and corrective mainte-
Reformer (R203) 0.2786 9.6 nance is appropriate for low-risk facilities to reduce maintenance
Reformer (R204) 0.2786 9.6 expenditure.
1st hydrogen compressor (K201) 0.8859 12.5
Steam turbine (T201) 0.8859 13.8
This research and the implementation of an RBM strategy
2nd hydrogen compressor 1 Not need would be of benefit to those industries where personnel injury
(K202 A/B) and environmental pollution are a possible consequence of any
Pumps (P202 A/B) 1 Not need facility failure. Future research should focus on the design of
Catalyst regenerator (R301) 0.2868 6.2
maintenance strategies, taking into consideration both type of
Cooling unit (E202) 1 Not need
Separator (D201) 1 Not need maintenance and maintenance interval for corrective and
High pressure absorber (D204) 1 Not need preventative maintenance.

In this paper, AHP was used to determine the three weight
factors as follows: personnel safety effect (w1 ¼ 0.3958), environ-
mental threat (w2 ¼ 0.3958) and economic loss (w3 ¼ 0.2084). The
detailed calculation procedures of AHP are not presented here. The
risk index calculations for each facility are shown in Table 5.
Three facilities were found to violate the risk criterion:
combined furnace (H201ACD), solo furnace (H201B) and catalyst
regenerator (R301), which are underlined in Table 5. Therefore,
a new maintenance strategy must be developed to shorten the
interval of preventive maintenance for these three facilities.
3.6. Maintenance planning
The approach that we adopted to lower the risk level of critical
facilities to meet the acceptable risk criterion was to reduce the
failure probability via shortened intervals of preventive mainte-
nance. For a facility with a risk index of less than 1.0, the preventive
maintenance interval can be extended accordingly to reduce
maintenance expenditure.
First, the maximum acceptable failure probability of each facility
was obtained through performing a reverse process of risk
assessment and evaluation as mentioned above, to reduce risk level
below the acceptable risk criteria. Second, regarding reliability
constraints, the corresponding maintenance interval was calcu-
lated using the two-parameter Weibull distribution model. The
results are listed in Table 6.
The results show that the calculated maximum acceptable
failure probability of the five facilities, including 2nd hydrogen
compressor (K202 A/B), pumps (P202 A/B), cooling unit (E202),
separator (D201) and high pressure absorber (D204), are equal to
1.0. This means that even though the five facilities do break down,
the consequence is slight and acceptable. Therefore, a reasonable
maintenance strategy for the five facilities is not preventive
maintenance but corrective maintenance on the occasions that
they break down.
4. Conclusions
This paper presents a methodology for scheduling an RBM
strategy for petrochemical plants. When quantifying the risk of
a failure scenario, a consequence analysis involves three features:
personnel safety effect, environmental threat and economic loss.
However, it should be noted that it is a sensitive matter to measure
personnel injury and environmental pollution in monetary terms;
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant from the National High
Technology Research and Development Program of China (No.
2009AA04Z402) and the Youth Science Foundation of China (No.
51105295).
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