Design structure matrix (DSM) method application to issue of modeling and analyzing the fault tree of a wind energy asset

The perpetual energy production of a wind farm could be accomplished (under proper weather conditions) if no failures occurred. But even the best possible design, manufacturing, and maintenance of a system cannot eliminate the failure possibility. In order to understand and minimize the system failures, the most crucial components of the wind turbines, which are prone to failures, should be identified. Moreover, it is essential to determine and classify the criticality of the system failures according to the impact of these failure events on wind turbine safety. The present study is processing the failure data from a wind farm and uses the Fault Tree Analysis as a baseline for applying the Design Structure Matrix technique to reveal the failure and risk interactions between wind turbine subsystems. Based on the analysis performed and by introducing new importance measures, the “readiness to fail” of a subsystem in conjunction with the “failure riskiness” can determine the “failure criticality.” The value of the failure criticality can define the frame within which interventions could be done. The arising interventions could be applied either to the whole system or could be focused in specified pairs of wind turbine subsystems. In conclusion, the method analyzed in the present research can be effectively applied by the wind turbine manufacturers and the wind farm operators as an operation framework, which can lead to a limited (as possible) design‐out maintenance cost, failures' minimization, and safety maximization for the whole wind turbine system.     

Capacity Efficiency and Restorability of Path Protection and Rerouting in WDM Networks Subject to Dual Failures

Resilient optical networks are predominately designed to protect against single failures of fiber links. But in larger networks, operators also see dual failures. As the capacity was planned for single failures, disconnections can occur by dual failures even if enough topological connectivity is provided. In our approach the design of the network minimizes the average loss caused by dual failures, while single failures are still fully survived. High dual failure restorability is the primary aim, capacity is optimized in a second step. For WDM networks with full wavelength conversion, we formulate mixed integer linear programming models for dedicated path protection, shared (backup) path protection, and path rerouting with and without stub-release. For larger problem instances in path rerouting, we propose two heuristics. Computational results indicate that the connectivity is of much more importance for high restorability values than the overall protection capacity. Shared protection has similar restorability levels as dedicated protection while the capacity is comparable to rerouting. Rerouting surpasses the protection mechanisms in restorability and comes close to 100% dual failure survivability. Compared to single failure planning, both shared path protection and rerouting need significantly more capacity in dual failure planning.     

Fault-aware Communication Mapping for NoCs with Guaranteed Latency

As feature sizes shrink, transient failures of on-chip network links become a critical problem. At the same time, many applications require guarantees on both message arrival probability and response time. We address the problem of transient link failures by means of temporally and spatially redundant transmission of messages, such that designer-imposed message arrival probabilities are guaranteed. Response time minimisation is achieved by a heuristic that statically assigns multiple copies of each message to network links, intelligently combining temporal and spatial redundancy. Concerns regarding energy consumption are addressed in two ways. First, we reduce the total amount of transmitted messages, and, second, we minimise the application response time such that the resulted time slack can be exploited for energy savings through voltage reduction. The advantages of the proposed approach are guaranteed message arrival probability and guaranteed worst case application response time.     

Different insights for improving part and system reliability obtained from exactly same DFOM “failure numbers”

Techniques for improving the reliability and maintainability of both nonrepairable and repairable items can be suggested by failure data analysis. It is shown that a given set of failure numbers leads to very different improvement strategies when the numbers are the times-between-successive-failures of one or more repairable items, rather than the times-to-failure of nonrepairable items. Since this should have been obvious more than 50 years ago, at the onset of formal reliability engineering activities, several reasons are proffered for the widespread and protracted misinterpretation of even the most basic—and simple!—conceptual and practical differences between nonrepairable and repairable items.     

基于隐性故障模型和风险理论的关键线路辨识

在大规模电网中，由简单故障触发的电力系统连锁故障常常会引起大停电的灾难性后果。为了研究复杂电网连锁故障的传播机理，同时找出对连锁故障产生重要影响的关键线路，文中基于模拟连锁故障的隐性故障模型和风险理论，提出了复杂电力系统的线路故障风险评估方法，并辨识出了对系统大停电产生重要影响的一系列关键线路。模型考虑了线路过负荷保护、隐性故障、控制策略及系统运行等参数，对IEEE 118节点系统仿真结果表明，在重负荷状态运行下只对辨识出的少量关键线路加以改善，就可以使系统停电概率大幅减小，特别是大停电概率;在临界状态运行下改善少量关键线路，则可以使系统脱离临界状态，避免大停电发生。     

Proactive resource allocation for asynchronous real-time distributed systems in the presence of processor failures

We present two proactive resource allocation algorithms, RBA^*-FT and OBA-FT, for fault-tolerant asynchronous real-time distributed systems. The algorithms consider an application model where task timeliness is specified by Jensen's benefit functions and the anticipated application workload during future time intervals is described by adaptation functions. In addition, we assume that reliability functions of processors are available a priori. Given these models, our objective is to maximize aggregate task benefit and minimize aggregate missed deadline ratio in the presence of processor failures. Since determining the optimal solution is computationally intractable, the algorithms heuristically compute sub-optimal resource allocations, but in polynomial time. Experimental results reveal that RBA^*-FT and OBA-FT outperform their non-fault-tolerant counterparts in the presence of processor failures. Furthermore, RBA^*-FT performs better than OBA-FT, although OBA-FT incurs better worst-case and amortized computational costs. Finally, we observe that both algorithms robustly withstand errors in the estimation of anticipated failures.     

Encapsulation of PV modules using ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer as a pottant: A critical review

The primary purpose of this work is to review the literature about what is and is not known about using ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA0 copolymer as the encapsulant (or pottant) material in photovoltaic (PV) modules. Secondary purposes include elucidating the complexity of the encapsulation problem, providing an overview about encapsulation of PV cells and modules, providing a historical overview of the relevant research and development on EVA, summarizing performance losses reported for PV systems deployed since ca. 1981, and summarizing the general problems of polymer stability in a solar environment. We also provide a critical review of aspects of reported work for cases that we believe are important.Failure modes resolved in the early work to establish reliability of deployed modules and the purposes and properties of pottants, are summarized. Typical performance losses in large field-deployed, large-scale systems ranging from 1% to 10% per year are given quantitatively, and qualitative reports of EVA discoloration are summarized with respect to ultraviolet (UV), world-wide location and site dependence.The general stability of polymers and their desirable bulk properties for solar utilization are given. The stabilization formulation for EVA, its effectiveness, and changes in it during degradation are discussed. The degradation mechanisms for the base resin, e.g., unstabilized Elvax 150^TM, and stabilized EVA are indicated for literature dating to the early 1950s, and the role played by unsaturated chromophores is indicated. The limited number of studies relating discoloration and PV cell efficiency are summarized.Observed degradation of EVA or the unstabilized base resin in the laboratory and examples used to measure the degradation are summarized in sections entitled: (1) thermally-induced degradation; (2) photodegradation and photothermal degradation of EVA in different temperature regimes; (3) photobleaching and photodegradation of the UV absorber and cross-linking agent; (4) acetic acid and metal and metal-oxide catalyzed oxidative degradation; and (5) discolaration and PV cell efficiency losses.Processing effects/influences on EVA stability are discussed in sections entitled: (1) EVA raw materials and extruded, uncured films; (2) thermal encapsulation processes; (3) effects of lamination, curing, and curing peroxide on gel content and chromophores formed; and (4) incomplete shielding of curing-generated chromophores. A summary is given for the limited number of accelerated lifetime testing efforts and examples of erroneous service lifetime predictions for EVA are discussed. The known factors that effect the discoloration rate of several EVA formulations are discussed in which the reduction in rate by using UV-absorbing superstrates is a prime example. A summary is given of what is and is not known about EVA degradation mechanisms, degradation from exposures in field-deployed modeules and/or laboratory testing, and factors that contribute to EVA stability or degradation. Finally, conclusions about using Elvax 150 in EVA formulations are summarized, and future prospects for developing the next-generation pottant for encapsulating PV modules are discussed.     

Erosion-corrosion of a stainless steel distillation column in food industry

Unusual extended corrosion phenomena were detected in a distillation column made in AISI type 316 stainless steel (UNS S31600) of a plant for natural pectins extraction from citrus. The column was the first of a series of two distillation columns representing the unit core. Corrosion problems were observed only in that column and mainly along the surface of the trays located in the lower section of the column. The phenomenon was observed subsequently to a modification of the original plant layout that caused an increase of the operating temperatures and turbulence of the process stream inside the column.     

Trace,failure and testing equivalences for communicating processes

A basic question in the theory of communicating processes is “When should two processes be considered equivalent?”. Attempts to answer this question have led to the concepts of observation equivalence, bisimulations, testing equivalence, failure equivalence, etc. The main point of this paper is to increase the understanding and motivation for two of these equivalences, namely failure and testing equivalences. The approach starts with the idea that the equivalence of processes should be reducible to the visible sequences of actions which a process performs in various contexts. This idea is implemented by a string-based semantic order for communicating processes where divergence is catastrophic. Under some assumptions about contexts, the resulting semantics is shown to be equivalent to theimproved failure semantics of Brookes and Roscoe⁽¹⁾ and also to themust testing-semantics of Hennessy and DeNicola.^(2–4) This characterization gives independent support for the appropriateness of failures and testing.