Support decision making in maintenance activities through the use of Monitoring Systems and Diagnostic

摘要

The proposal of this article is to present the importance of having a monitoring system and the benefits from a proper analysis of the data (diagnostic) that comes from this system for hydropower plants. The philosophy that shall guide the Monitoring and Diagnostic (M&D) processes, the most common monitoring parameters and some typical analysis are presented and associated examples are studied. In this context, two cases were analyzed in order to illustrate the advantages involving the use of M&D. The main benefits are the prevention of sudden appearance of failures (minimizing the damage), better planning of maintenance activities with a more accurate definition about which items must be changed/repaired (implying in faster inspections and larger interval between stops), possibility to postpone or anticipate shutdowns based on the actual machine condition and evaluation of the most critical operating points in order to avoid them and extend the power unit life.