RAM-based Data Analytics for Power Plant Case Study: Steam Power Plant in Thailand

Department of Teacher Training in Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Technical Education King Mongkut University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

This research project aims to improve a power plant maintenance program by using the theory of RAM (Reliability Availability and Maintainability). A North Bangkok Combined Cycle Power Plant, especially a steam turbines power plant, is selected to conduct research from 2021 to 2022. The steps of this research can be separated into 2 phases as follows; the first phase involves root cause analysis from failure notifications stored in the CMMS-KKS code database and risk prioritization. Unit C10 and the compressed air unit system in steam turbines operation are the critical systems subsequently, the RAM approach is applied to improve a preventive maintenance program of unit C10 by estimating an operation time before failure, system availability, and the ability to repair. RAM information is brought to reschedule a PM program, for example, MTTF, MTTR, failure rate, and repair rate, etc. It is found that the percentage of unit C10 system reliability, R(t), and availability, A(t), are higher than 90%. Furthermore, the trade-off between the cost of maintenance and failure for unit C10 is decided by running unit C10 at a percentage of reliability of 88% which can schedule a maintenance interval every 300 hours