Main Article Content
Reliability study of Kolo Creek Gas Turbine Power Station
Abstract
Equipment failures such as unbalanced rotating elements, steam-induced vibration, misalignment of turbine shaft and rotor malfunction create production, safety, operational and environmental problems in a thermal power plant. This paper assessed the reliability and availability status of Kolo Creek Gas Turbine Power Station. The method of reliability evaluation was based on the collection of historical operational failure database of two turbines with total installed capacity of 20 MW over a period of seven years (1995 – 2001) and the analysis of the data was carried out by applying the reliability indices model. The result of the analysis indicated reliability and availability values of 10% and 70.5% respectively over the period under consideration. These values are very low due to too frequent failures and downtimes arising from lack of maintenance culture. It is necessary to improve the reliability indices of the power plant by employing well planned and routine maintenance of equipment as well as training and retraining of technical human resources of the major equipment.
Keywords: Failure, Downtime, Maintenance, Reliability, Availability, Indices