Analyses of component degradation to evaluate maintenance effectiveness and aging effects

摘要

This paper describes degradation modeling, an approach for analyzing degradation and failure of components to understand the aging process of components. As used in our study, degradation modeling is the analysis of information on degradation of components for developing models of the degradation process and its implications. This modeling focuses on the analysis of the times of degradations of components, to model how the rate of degradation changes with the age of the component. With this methodology we also determine the effectiveness of maintenance as applicable to aging evaluations. The specific applications which are performed show quantitative models of degradation rates of components and failure rates of components from plant-specific data. The statistical techniques allow aging trends to be identified in the degradation data and in the failure data. Initial estimates of the effectiveness of maintenance in limiting degradations from becoming failures are developed. These results are important first steps in degradation modeling, and show that degradation can be modeled to identify aging trends. 2 refs., 8 figs., 1 tab.