Development of reliability index for combined cycle power plant using graph theoretic approach

A systematic approach based on graph theory and matrix method is developed ingeniously for the evaluation of reliability index for a Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP). In present work CCPP system is divided into six subsystems. Consideration of all these subsystems and their interrelations are rudiment in evaluating the index. Reliability of CCPP is modeled in terms of a Reliability Attributes Digraph. Nodes in digraph represent system reliability and reliability of interrelations is represented by edges. The digraph is converted into one-to-one matrix called as Variable System Reliability Permanent Matrix (VPM-r). A procedure is defined to develop variable permanent function for reliability (VPF-r) from VPM-r. Reliability index of CCPP system is obtained from the permanent of the matrix by substituting numerical values of the attributes and their interrelations. A higher value of index implies better reliability of the system. The proposed methodology is illustrated step-by-step with the help of two examples. (C) 2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Ain Shams University.