Risk-based maintenance and remaining life assessment for gas turbines

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose a quantitative model for risk-based maintenance and remaining life assessment for gas turbines. Design/methodology/approach - The proposed model uses historical failure and repair data from the operation of gas turbines. The time to failure of gas turbines is modeled using Weibull distribution. Findings - The total risk is estimated considering replacement cost, repair cost, operation cost, risk of failure and turbine remaining value after a specified period of time. Originality/value - The model is an effective tool to make optimal decisions regarding maintenance strategy (repair or replacement) and to assess the remaining life based on a comparison of the total risk. The literature review focusses on developing different models to make risk-based decisions regarding the selection of a maintenance strategy and maintenance interval, however, literature is silent regarding risk-based assessment of the equipment remaining life, which is the focus of present work. The model is tested and applied to ageing gas turbines in a cross-country pipeline.