Title: Safety and reliability optimisation of captive power plants using intelligent maintenance scheduling

Authors: Dusmanta Kumar Mohanta, Pradip Kumar Sadhu, R. Chakrabarti

Addresses: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology, Deemed University, Mesra, Ranchi 835215, India. ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Deemed University, Dhanbad 826004, India. ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India

Abstract: This paper describes the intelligent maintenance scheduling of a captive thermal plant using intelligent computational techniques such as Simulated Annealing (SA). A case study pertaining to a captive power plant for an aluminium smelter has been formulated using reliability-based objective function including statutory safety norms as constraints. As the utilities catered for captive power plants are very sensitive to power failure, the reliability of power supply has been evaluated by the Loss of Load Probability (LOLP) index for the optimum schedule.

Keywords: captive power plants; statutory safety norms; maintenance scheduling; simulated annealing; SA; loss of load probability; LOLP; safety optimisation; reliability optimisation; intelligent maintenance; intelligent scheduling; thermal plants; aluminium smelting; power supply reliability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2006.010695

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2006 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.155 - 167

Published online: 19 Aug 2006 *

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