Abstract—The aim of this study is to develop an availability simulation model that can be used for evaluating the performance of coal crushing system of a thermal power plant using probability theory and Markov birth-death process. The present system under study consists of five subsystems with three possible states i.e. full capacity working, reduced capacity working and failed. Failure and repair rates of all subsystems are assumed to be constant. After drawing transition diagram, differential equations have been generated and solved using recursive approach. Then, steady state availability is determined, which is the developed availability simulation model. Besides, some availability matrices are also developed, which provide various performance or availability levels for different combinations of failure and repair rates of all subsystems. Hence, performance of coal crushing system is analyzed and evaluated. The developed model helps the plant management in getting the information about maximum availability of each of the five subsystems with optimum values of failure/repair rates and in comparative evaluation of alternative maintenance strategies.
Index Terms—Availability, Maintenance decisions, Steady state probabilities and Transition diagram.
Cite: Sorabh Gupta and P. C. Tewari, "Simulation Model for Coal Crushing System of a Typical Thermal Power Plant," International Journal of Engineering and Technology vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 156-164, 2009.
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