Managing environmentally stressed aging assets in electric power utilities

Onyewuchi, Urenna

Title:

Managing environmentally stressed aging assets in electric power utilities

dc.contributor.advisor	Begović, Miroslav M.
dc.contributor.author	Onyewuchi, Urenna
dc.contributor.committeeMember	DesRoches, Reginald
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Habetler, Thomas
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Mukhopadhyay, Saibal
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Harley, Ronald
dc.contributor.department	Electrical and Computer Engineering
dc.date.accessioned	2015-01-26T19:19:15Z
dc.date.available	2015-01-26T19:19:15Z
dc.date.issued	2012-12
dc.description.abstract	A model for optimizing the differential cost between a preventive maintenance program and a traditional run-to-failure program on managing assets under uncertainty is developed to assist electric power utilities in decision-making. The assets studied, though not necessarily critical to power delivery, are so numerous in number that the failures of thousands of them result in millions of dollars in instantaneous replacement cost to the utility. The ages of some of the assets are approaching an excess of one hundred years, the age of commercial electricity in the United States. The developed model includes the economics of inspections and replacements as random variables, where the cost of corrective replacements could significantly exceed the cost of planned or preventive replacements. The model also relies on uncertainties in annual failures and inaccuracy of diagnostics that drive planned replacements. Age-specific fragilities of the assets under environmental stress are assessed, and the likelihood of failures of the assets was found to increase significantly as they approached one hundred years, past some initial age of failures that are comparable to new assets. This finding led to the development of an improved geographical inspection scheme, where only components past that initial age are recommended for diagnostic evaluation. The optimization results suggest that the present net benefit/cost of preventive replacement programs of the electric power utility to the unpopular run-to-failure program can be improved on. This, by using the developed models and adopting the frameworks presented in the research work. Implications for future research are also discussed.	en_US
dc.description.degree	Ph.D.
dc.embargo.terms	null	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/53150
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology	en_US
dc.subject	Asset management	en_US
dc.subject	Environmental stress	en_US
dc.subject	Decision making	en_US
dc.subject	Electric utility	en_US
dc.subject	Aging infrastructure	en_US
dc.title	Managing environmentally stressed aging assets in electric power utilities	en_US
dc.type	Text
dc.type.genre	Dissertation
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.corporatename	School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename	College of Engineering
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	5b7adef2-447c-4270-b9fc-846bd76f80f2
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569