Behavioural analysis of urea decomposition system in a fertiliser plant. (1st January 2011)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sharma, S.P.; Garg, Harish
• Is Part Of: International journal of industrial and systems engineering. Volume 8:Number 3(2011)
• Page Start: 271
• Page End: 297
• Publication Date: 2011-01-01
• Subjects: reliability -- availability -- maintainability -- PNs -- Petri nets -- Lambda–Tau methodology -- fuzzy sets; Systems engineering -- Periodicals; Industrial engineering -- Periodicals; 620.001171
• DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2011.041539
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1748-5037

Abstract

Reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) analysis of a system is helpful in carrying out design modifications, if any, and it is required to achieve minimum failures or to increase mean time between failures (MTBF), and thus it is used to plan maintainability requirements, optimise reliability and maximum equipment availability. To this effect, this paper presents the application of RAM analysis in the process industry. Fuzzy Lambda–Tau methodology is used here to model the system behaviour. Each system components, failure rate and repair time are represented by triangular fuzzy numbers with known spread. The methodology uses Petri nets to model the system instead of fault tree because it allows efficient simultaneous generation of minimal cuts and path sets. Various reliability parameters such as MTBF, expected number of failures (ENOF), reliability, availability, etc. are calculated. The computed results are presented to plant personnel for their performance considerably by adopting and practicing suitable maintenance policies/strategies.