Power System Reliability Lecture No.8 Dr.

Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim

8 . RELIABILITY OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

8.1 Series Systems
Power system systems are made up of subsystems or components.
Functionally, these subsystems or components are arranged in series or
parallel connections or in combinations of the two.
For a series connection, every component is required to function for system
success. Let us consider n component system X1, X2, X3 ,.........., Xn as shown in
Fig 8.1.

X1 X2 X3 Xn

Fig. 8.1. A series connection.

The probability of success of the system is

Where Probability of success of = Reliability (t)

Probability of success of = Reliability (t)

Probability of success of = Reliability (t)

......................... ...

Probability of success of = Reliability (t)

If the components have exponential failure probabilities with corresponding

failure rates, λ1, λ2, λ3, and so on, then the system reliability

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Power System Reliability Lecture No.8 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim

The sum ( λ1 +λ2 +λ3+ -----+λn ) is a constant = λ. It is the composite failure rate
of the series system. From the system failure rate λ, the mean time between
failures of the system can be calculated:

8.2 Parallel Systems

A parallel system in a reliability sense means only one of the components in
the parallel connections has to work in order that the system will function. Let
us consider n component system X1, X2, X3 ,.........., Xn connected in parallel as
shown in Fig 8.2.

X1

X2
Fig. 8.2. A parallel connection

X3

Xn

The probability of success of the system is

where = Probability of failure of ith component =

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Power System Reliability Lecture No.8 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim

Hence:

If all the elements have the same Q(t)’s

If all the elements of the parallel system have constant failure rates and hence
exponential reliability functions, as is usually assumed, the reliability of the
parallel system will be

If all λ are the same,

Example8.1:
What is the reliability of the following system as shown in Fig. 8.3?

Fig.8.3 . A parallel–series connected system.

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Power System Reliability Lecture No.8 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim

Solution:

Reliability of system

8.3 Availability Model

When a system fails, it will be out of service for some time until it is repaired or
replaced. Even for systems with spare units, the system can be “down” if a
failure occurs when no more spares are available. The percentage of time that
the system is functioning is called the availability of the system. It is usually
expressed as

Since on average, it takes a time interval equal to the MTTF for the system to
fail and a time interval equal to the MTTR for the system to be operational
again, the availability, defined as uptime / (uptime+ downtime), can be
expressed as

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Power System Reliability Lecture No.8 Dr.Mohammed Tawfeeq Lazim

and unavailability can be expressed as

For systems that can be treated as a single component with a constant failure
rate λ and repair rate μ, the availability

and unavailability