Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Applied To Power Transformers
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Applied To Power Transformers
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Applied To Power Transformers
Transformers
Suelen C. Freitag Mauricio Sperandio Tiago B. Marchesan Rodinei Carraro
UFSM – Brazil UFSM- Brazil UFSM- Brazil CEEE – Brazil
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Abstractʊ This work presents the Failure Modes and Effects Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM), has been
Analysis (FMEA) technique applied to an utility’s power continuously improved to meet these needs.
transformers to obtain a risk value to enable the optimization of
a maintenance schedule. The application of the study will lead to According to [2] RCM is the assignment of optimal
greater assertiveness of the investments, providing technical and maintenance strategy for each component in a system, taking
scientific support and agility in the decision making. into account component importance / priority as well as failure
Index Terms— Reliability, Failure Modes and Efeccts modes and their effects on system reliability. RCM studies for
Analysis (FMEA), Risk Priority Number (RPN), Power power transformers have been of great interest in the works
Transformer. [3]–[9].
The growing number of transformers that are aging and
operating close to their capacity, or even above it for short
I. INTRODUCTION periods, highlights the need for better strategies to manage
The electric power transmission network plays a these assets [10].
fundamental role in the electric system, being the link between Hence, this work intends to approach a transformer
generation and load, and are planned and operated for the management study, based on historical maintenance data, to
highest possible reliability. However, these networks still are detect potential failure through RCM, in order to make the
subject to interruptions, defect and malfunctions of various appropriate decision of appropriate preventive or corrective
devices present in the system. actions.
Power transformers are one of the main equipment within
the substations of the transmission system, and their loss of II. RELIABILITY CENTRED MAINTENANCE
function generates major operational disturbances, mainly
overloads in other transformers. When a fault or fault trip Transmission agents are pursuing strategies to increase the
occurs in this equipment, a large amount of energy is reliability of their systems, one of the areas of great interest and
interrupted. In addition, their replacement or maintenance is contribution to this increase is the maintenance department,
difficult, taking several weeks, leaks can cause serious because positive performance results in costs reduction. Thus,
environmental impacts, and therefore have high financial costs. maintenance plays a strategic role for the companies.
Particularly according to [1], power transformers are a One of the practices adopted by world-class companies as a
reliable equipment, with low failure rate, but because they are way of guaranteeing their competitiveness and the consequent
very expensive and difficult to transport, it is always necessary continuity in the market is the practice of RCM methodology,
to improve the maintenance of their components in order to which is the application of a structured method to establish the
increase the life and decrease the risk. best maintenance strategy for a given system or equipment.
It is known that a large number of power transformers The RCM process and the use of the support tools initially
currently in operation in the world, is approaching the end of require a perfect understanding of a series of definitions
its useful life. In Brazil, this situation is no different, with parks associated with the failures and performances of the physical
with an average of 30 years in operation. The operating state items. Therefore, some fundamental definitions for the
of a particular transformer (close to the end of life) increases development of RCM will be presented, according to [11].
the probability of failure of the equipment. A transformer can • Function: is what the user wants the item or system to do
overload because of interruptions of another equipment, so a within a specified performance pattern;
contingency analisys is necessaire to evaluate this situations. • Failures: consists of interrupting or changing the ability of
In addition, the configuration information of the substation that an item to perform a required or expected function;
the transformer under review is operating is essential, since • Failure Mode: is defined as any event that causes a functional
they can reduce the degree of overload or even eliminate it. failure, that lead to a partial or total reduction of the
In a competitive electric market, high maintenance costs equipment function and its performance goals associated
have led to the need to use methods to increase efficiency in with it;
the maintenance process and to extend equipment life. • Cause of Failure: represents the events that generate the
O – Occurrence; IV
D – Detectability. Critical Risk Range
III
Tolerable Risk Range
II
The risk matrix uses the levels of detectability, occurrence Low Risk Range
I
or frequency, severity of risk that are classified according to
I II III IV V
Table I, Table II and Table III, respectively, adapted from [11],
Severity
[14], [15].
Fig. 1. Risk Matrix.
Once the levels of occurrence, severity and acceptability of
risks have been defined, we can construct the Risk Matrix, III. METHODOLOGY
shown in Fig. 1
This session presents the method developed to calculate the
With the Risk Matrix, it is visualize the degree of risk of
risk of each transformer in the system and then do a ranking of
each equipment, thus taking actions that can reduce or
these equipment, in order to direct maintenance and justify
eliminate the risk associated with the potential cause of the
policy changes to improve the system reliabity.
failure. They can then prioritize issues based on this risk and
Fig. 2 presents the flowchart of the method for determining
prioritize high risk equipment.
the equipments risk for the system. This includes the use of
Collect functional NORMAL OPERATION
information from
equipment
ȜF μ
ȜS
μD
Determine potential
μSN ȜD
failure modes FAILURE
Overload Contingency ȜΜ
μM
analysis analysis
ȜSD
Determine the causes OVERLOAD OFF
of each failure
Contingency
analysis
Determine failure rates
Find occurrence
Find severity ranking
ranking Fig. 3. Reliability model of a transformer.
Find detection ranking
The state of a component can be understood as the set of
possible values that its parameters can assume. These
parameters are called state variables and describe the condition
of the component. State space is the set of all states that a
Calculate RPN
component can present.
To better comprehend this technique we observe the
example shown in Fig. 4 where it is possible to describe two
Identification of critical
equipment states, ON and OFF [16].
Fig. 2. Proposed methodology
From the knowledge of the number of states and the rates of
transitions between states we can calculate the probability of
FMEA, which aims to define and identify potential system the system being in each state, in the same way knowing the
failures, the use of the evaluation in the electrical system with current state we can determine the chance to reach a certain
the intention to carry out the analysis of the impact of the loss state or estimate the time to reach it (number of transitions).
of the equipment to system (contingency analysis), in addition The sum of all the transition rates (Pkj), exit and permanence
to the analysis of overload, to verify if the operation of the of the state, must be equal to one.
n
equipment is above its nominal capacity.
All these analyzes contribute to the determination of a new ¦P
j =1
kj = 1 (3)
i - number of transitions.
Fig. 5. Distribution of faults in 230 kV power transformer components
IV PAL13 TR1 1 3 5 15 33
Critical Risk Range
III PAL13 TR2 1 3 6 15 34
Tolerable Risk Range
II LIV2 TR4 1 2 7 14 35
Low Risk Range
I PPE TR2 1 2 7 14 36
I II III IV V CBO TR6 1 2 6 12 37
Severity CBO TR7 1 2 6 12 38
Fig. 6. Example Risk Matrix for the Substation PAL6 TR1 . LAJ2 TR3 1 2 6 12 39
PAL4 TR1 1 2 6 12 40
This technique is being implemented in a management PAL9 TR5 1 2 6 12 41
software, which will have access to the company database, and GRA2 AT1 1 3 4 12 42
will allow to generate these reports automatically after GRA2 AT2 1 3 4 12 43
parameter setting by a specialist. GRA2 AT3 1 3 4 12 44
GRA2 TR1 1 3 4 12 45
V. CONCLUSIONS PAL8 TR1 1 2 5 10 46
PAL8 TR2 1 2 5 10 47
This paper illustrates the use of the Failure Mode and Effect
Analysis technique to determine Occurrence (O), Severity (S) SCH TR1 1 2 5 10 48
and Detection (D) to analyze power transformers and to enable GRA2 TR2 1 2 4 8 49
the optimization of a maintenance schedule. The study scores GRA2 TR3 1 2 4 8 50
and prioritizes the risk through a calculation of the RPN [5] A. Abiri-Jahromi, M. Parvania, F. Bouffard, and M. Fotuhi-
Firuzabad, “A Two-Stage Framework for Power Transformer Asset
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Maintenance Management - Part II: Validation Results,” IEEE
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