Comprehensive condition assessment of circuit breakers in a power network for maintenance scheduling

Abstract

AbstractEnhancing preventive maintenance (PM) by using condition monitoring of circuit breaker (CB) can reduce maintenance costs, if enough information about the condition of this expensive equipment are provided. Here, using recorded coil current data of CBs in a power system network and on the basis of their calculated failure probability function, an algorithm is developed for comprehensive CB condition assessment. For this purpose, first, CBs are prioritized according to their cumulative failure probability functions. Second, by introducing healthy/reference CBs and comparing them with the CB with the highest priority, the condition of the latter is assessed that whether it needs maintenance or not. At last, by creating two sets of reference CBs with healthy/reference features and/or mechanisms and comparing them with the features and/or mechanisms of the CB with the highest priority, the failure part of the considered CB that needs to be repaired will be identified. The proposed methodology is straightforward, completely rule‐based and relies just on recorded data and the results have enough clarity and reliability.