Failure mode analysis and severity measurement method for hydropower equipment

Abstract

To meet the practical needs of effective failure management and safe operation of hydropower systems, the classification and description standardization of the failure modes are studied based on the statistical analysis of historical maintenance data of in-service hydropower equipment. The method of building the failure mode library is then offered, followed by the specification of failure mode codes. Given the characteristics of the hydropower equipment, a severity rating method and the severity measurement model of failure modes for hydropower equipment are proposed, with definition criteria built using fuzzy semantic techniques. Finally, a thrust bearing system of the hydraulic generator sets is used as an example to validate the method of failure mode analysis and severity measurement, and practical suggestions for implementation of severity measurement are given in this paper.