Computational Intelligence in Sustainable Reliability Engineering

2Mathematical Modeling and Availability Optimization of Turbine Using Genetic Algorithm

Monika Saini, Nivedita Gupta and Ashish Kumar*

Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

Abstract

The main aim of present study is to optimize the availability of a turbine unit (TU) of steam turbine power plant (STPP). For this purpose, a mathematical model is developed using Markovian Birth-Death Process (MBDP) and Chapman-Kolmogorov differential equations derived for a proposed model. The analytical solution of mathematical model is derived for a particular case by considering exponential distribution for random variables associated with failure and repair rates. By using nature-inspired algorithm (NIA), namely genetic algorithm (GA), an effort is made to attain the global solution of the TU. The derived results are presented in tabular and graphical forms.

Keywords: Availability, optimization, genetic algorithm, Markov birth-death process

2.1 Introduction

In spite of advancement of renewable energy resources, steam turbine power plants (STPP) are the primary source of electricity generation in the world. In most of the STPPs, coal is used as a fuel. Though on earth, sufficient coal reserves are available for next two centuries, coal causes severe negative impact on environment. During the last few decades, other sources like oil, natural gases and uranium were also used as fuel. But now, most of the energy companies focusing on the process ...