Survey of reliability and availability information for power distribution, power generation, and HVAC components for commercial, industrial, and utility installations

This paper presents the culmination of a 24000 man-hour effort to collect operational and maintenance data on 204 power generation, power distribution and HVAC items, including gas turbine generators, diesel engine generators, electrical switchgear, cables, circuit breakers, boilers, piping, valves, pumps, motors and chillers. The data collection process and the resultant data are the subject of this paper. The primary purpose of the data collection effort was to provide more current equipment reliability and availability data when performing a facility reliability/availability assessment. Information was obtained on a variety of commercial and industrial facility types with varying degrees of maintenance quality. Data collection guidelines and goals were established to ensure that sufficient operational and maintenance data were collected for statistically valid analysis. A database system, with flexible output capabilities, was developed to track both the equipment information and the contact information. The levels of data quality and maintenance quality were assessed during the analysis phase of the project. The results indicated that the maintenance quality level was a major predictor of equipment availability, therefore, the availability values presented represent an average maintenance program across all the data sources. In addition, the information obtained can aid facility designers and engineers in evaluating different designs to minimize production/mission failure and to estimate the down times associated with various systems or sub-systems