Developing a Quantitative Reliability-Centered Maintenance (QRCM) Model for High Voltage Circuit Breakers

High voltage circuit breakers (HVCBs) are recognized as critical components in power systems due to their essential protective function. To extend the lifespan of these components and prevent failures, various maintenance strategies, such as time-based maintenance (TbM) and condition-based maintenance (CbM), have been implemented by power utilities. To optimize these maintenance strategies given the available resources, a quantitative modelling approach is crucial. This paper introduces a Quantitative Reliability-Centered Maintenance (QRCM) framework for HVCBs in air-insulated substations (AIS). The proposed model is developed using failure data from established sources, including CIGRE 510 and IEEE C37. It identifies the distribution of failures across key components and major failure modes. With this information, random and aging failure modes are quantified using Weibull distribution. The model is then simulated using a reliability block diagram (RBD), incorporating stochastic methods, i.e. discrete event simulation (DES) and Monte Carlo simulation to provide a robust quantitative analysis.

Keywords: High Voltage Circuit Breaker (HVCB), Reliability Block Diagram (RBD), Quantitative Reliability-Centered Maintenance (QRCM), Asset management.