THE RELIABILITY AND ACCURACY OF REMNANT LIFE PREDICTIONS IN HIGH PRESSURE STEAM PLANT

摘要

Studies have been carried out to show how failure probabilities can be calculated from plant measurements, to set confidence limits on predictions of time-to-failure for components under varying load or operating conditions. The studies concentrate on creep damage in steam pipework, but the method developed can be generalised to a wide range of situations, because it relies only on general principles of measurement, rather than the specific technique or application. It uses numerical simulations to show how the reliability of time-to-failure predictions depends on the characteristics of measurements taken on plant, such as frequency of testing, accuracy of measurement technique, and number of samples taken at each inspection.