Electric Power Systems Research 81 (2011) 1709–1714

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Electric Power Systems Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsr

Age-dependent maintenance strategies of medium-voltage circuit-breakers and

transformers夽
Xiang Zhang ∗ , Ernst Gockenbach
Institute of Electric Power Systems, Division of High Voltage Engineering, Leibniz University of Hannover, Callinstrasse 25A, Hanover 30167, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The general life and reliability models of electrical equipment are essential to evaluate their actual con-
Received 14 October 2008 ditions because of the degradation of equipment. To optimize the maintenance strategies for maximal
Received in revised form 13 February 2011 reliability and minimal cost in a quantitative way, available maintenance models of ageing equipment
Accepted 10 March 2011
shall be found to describe actual maintenance actions in time-series processes. In particular, a functional
Available online 7 May 2011
relationship between failure rate and maintenance measures is to be developed for electrical equipment.
This paper demonstrates some actual examples by applying these models and the results show the value
Keywords:
of using a systematic quantitative approach to investigate the effect of different maintenance strategies.
Age
Circuit-breaker © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Cost
Failure rate
Maintenance strategy
Transformer

1. Introduction
Deregulation of the power system market has forced electric
utilities to scrutinize investment and maintenance expendi-
tures much more rigorously than in the past. Many focus their
investments on maintaining the competitive position of power gen-
erating assets, while trying to squeeze more performance from
ageing power delivery assets with less expenditure. However, in the
power transmission and distribution systems, the annual expen-
ditures for maintenance and replacement average only 1% or less
(equal to 20 billion Euro for distribution systems in Germany and
400 billion Dollar for transmission systems in USA), which corre-
sponds to an expected lifetime for more than 100 years of electrical
equipment [1]. Owing to the limited reinvestments, the age of elec-
trical equipment will increase so that the utilities have to face
various market requirements. On the one hand, customers are
paying for a service and the authorities are imposed regulation,
supervision, and compensation depending on the degree to which
contracts and other obligations are fulfilled. On the other hand,
utilities must ensure that their expenditure is cost-effective.
夽 This work was supported by the National Research Council of Germany under
the Contract SPP 1101.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhang@si.uni-hannover.de (X. Zhang).
The easiest way and the most widely used strategy today is
the time-based maintenance (TBM) [2]. There are fixed time inter-
vals for inspections and for certain maintenance works. However,
it seems that the time intervals chosen are far from the safe side
and the total replacement expenditure is extremely expensive, as
there are many inspections revealing no problems at all. So, the
time intervals obviously can be extended – the question is from
which point of time the occurrence of failures will increase signif-
icantly.
In order to obtain useful information about the actual conditions
of equipment, condition monitoring technique and condition-
based maintenance (CBM) has been well developed [3–5].
Condition monitoring technique means mainly sensor develop-
ment, data acquisition, data analysis, and development of methods
for determination of equipment condition and early fault recogni-
tion. The importance of monitoring methods can recognize which
measured parameter affects the ageing of equipment to a greater
or lesser degree. It should support the introduction of condition-
based maintenance and help to avoid unexpected outages. The cost
of sufficient instrumentation can often be quite large and off-line
measurement even causes more significant outage. In the majority
of cases, there are neither communication links nor suitable sen-
sors available for monitoring from remote. In terms of numerical
protection devices and control systems, those engineers are suf-
fering from data overload. Also, from the technical side, it is not
always as simple as possible. Even if some types of equipment can
easily be observed by measuring simple values as temperature or

0378-7796/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2011.03.018
1710 X. Zhang, E. Gockenbach / Electric Power Systems Research 81 (2011) 1709–1714

pressure, it is not trivial to turn this measured data into actionable polymerization, depolymerization of organic materials, diffusion
knowledge about health of the equipment. and thermal–mechanical effects as a result of thermal extension or
In recent years, the reliability centered maintenance (RCM) contraction. A mechanical ageing of equipment can only occur by
has been established [6–8]. RCM is an industrial improvement solid material as a result of mechanical tractive and shear forces
approach focused on identifying and establishing the operational, during transportation, installation and operation. The substantial
maintenance, and capital improvement policies that will manage reasons of mechanical ageing are electrodynamic, electromagnetic
the risks (combination of severity and frequency) of equipment and thermal forces. Ageing caused by ambient conditions comes
failure most effectively. As an economic and reliable life cycle from the reaction of material to humidity, air, chemical, biologi-
management, the condition and the importance of the equipment cal substances, weathering, pollution and radiation. But more or
must be combined and evaluated in order to create a cost-effective less the electrical equipment is simultaneously stressed by various
maintenance strategy, addressing dominant modes and causes of influence factors.
equipment failure. The artificial neutral network which exhibits the A thorough electro-thermo-mechanical life model of the electri-
non-linear input–output relationships between equipment reli- cal component can be established according to the Inverse Power
ability and system maintenance is integrated into maintenance Law and the Arrhenius Model. This can simply be done by assum-
management system (expert system) via a commercial software ing that ageing rate under these combined stresses is the product
tool. The reliability centered maintenance based on the analy- of ageing rates under each single stress [13,14]:
sis of “condition-importance” and the use of “weighting factors”,
depends heavily on practical experiences in diagnostic analysis and  E −(n−bT )  M −m 1 1
maintenance measures. L = L0 · · e−BT , T= − (1)
E0 M0 ϑ0 ϑ
That has followed so-called reliability centered asset manage-
ment (RCAM) since the last years [9–12]. The research approach where E, M, T and L are the electrical, mechanical, thermal stresses
deals with the life assessment (e.g. failure rate) and the main- and lifetime, respectively. E0 and M0 are the scale-parameters for
tenance tasks (e.g. inspection rate) based on several discrete the lower limit of electrical and mechanical stresses respectively
exponential distributions. The assumption of exponential distri- (below which the ageing can be neglected) and L0 is the correspond-
bution spent in each stage implies constant failure/maintenance ing lifetime. n, m and B are the voltage-endurance coefficient, the
rate which is assigning to each operation state. In that way, the mechanical stress-endurance coefficient and the activation energy
deterioration processes of equipment consist of a chain of discrete of thermal degradation reaction, respectively. b is the correct coef-
Markov models. Therefore, this parameter evaluated by using time ficient which takes into account the reaction of materials due to
between failures as input data for special network facility, is of the combined stress application. ϑ and ϑ0 are the absolute temperature
most concern in the analysis. These chosen parameters represent and the reference temperature.
past experience by single facts or numbers, without assigning any The failure of an electrical component may occur if over-voltage
degree of likelihood to future expectation. Therefore the approach or mechanical stress is applied, or if the electrical component is
does not provide enduring analytical models of the deterioration aged by temperature or time. A criterion for the ageing of electrical
processes, by which the consequences of each failure can be effec- components is consistent with the electrical, thermal or mechanical
tively used on a predictive basis for the future. On the basis of the stress. Thus the relationship between lifetime and failure probabil-
exponential distribution, the fitted curves are only a mathemati- ity of electrical equipment may be determined by:
cal simulation that is not concerned with any information about
the technical parameters and the operating conditions of electrical   ˛(n−bT )  m˛  ˛ 
E M L ˛BT
equipment, thus they can not give a complete understanding of the Pr(L) = 1 − exp − · · ·e (2)
E0 M0 L0
physical implications in failures.
Up to now, the impacts of maintenance on reliability and cost
can be analyzed only for those selected strategies. The reason is a Therefore, the lifetime L of an ageing component as a
lack of an available reliability model for the deteriorating electrical random variable t has a cumulative probability distribution
equipment and a theoretical maintenance model put into practice F(t) ≡ Pr{L ≤ t} with right continuous, and a probability density
for power systems. In fact, only a continuous quantitative descrip- function f(t) = dF(t)/dt
tion (mathematical models) can lead to an optimal solution of the   ˛[n−b((1/ϑ )−(1/ϑ))]  m˛
systematic maintenance strategies. Therefore, this broad perspec- E 0 M
F(t) ≡ Pr{L ≤ t} = 1 − exp − ·
tive of asset management is recognized as “relating maintenance E0 M0
effort to system availability and total cost, with the aim to reach
 t ˛ 
an optimal maintenance management”. This new research topic is
× · e˛B((1/ϑ0 )−(1/ϑ)) (3)
world-wide challenge for all researchers on asset management of L0
the power transmission and distribution systems.

Ageing is usually measured based on the term of a failure rate

2. Age-dependent reliability model function. Failure rate is the most important quantity in mainte-
nance theory. The instant failure rate function h(t) is defined as
The failure causes may identify the origin of detrimental effects,
contributing to the failure of electrical equipment. The influence f (t) 1 dF(t)
h(t) = = · (4)
factors producing an ageing change of equipment are divided in dif- F̄(t) F̄(t) dt
ferent stresses such as electrical, thermal, mechanical and ambient
stresses. The failure rate is the most important reliability items for elec-
The stresses of electric ageing are partial discharges, tracking, trical equipment. The failure rate allows electrical equipment in
treeing, electrolysis and space charges. The intensity and progress different asset classes to be compared with each other, and to make
of electrical ageing depends on the electric field strength in the reference to several criteria like age, number of maintenance, time
insulation. The consequences of thermal ageing comprise chemical, between events, etc. Whatever criteria for assessment are chosen,
physical and thermal–dynamic changes by chemical degradation, proper maintenance activities can be performed.
 X. Zhang, E. Gockenbach / Electric Power Systems Research 81 (2011) 1709–1714 1711

 
3. Modeling risk and costs cr S̄(x)h(x) dx − S() + cc S() + cp S̄()
= 0
 (7)
3.1. Defining strategies and their contributions 0
S̄(x) dx

During its life, the equipment might undergo several mainte-

Proof 1. Assume that Z represents the number of minimal repairs
nance activities in order to improve its reliability, which is achieved
during the time interval (0, min {, L}), we have the expected num-
by knowing its operability or by reducing its age. For circuit-
ber of repairs when L <  [16]
breakers or transformers, all the typical activities are grouped in   y
two strategies: 1
E{Z |L < } = P̄r(x)h(x) dx dS(y) (8)
S()
Strategy 1. Maintenance with sequential preventive maintenance 0 0

Consider a process where the component is subject to age-based or the expected number of repairs when L ≥  [16]
sequential replacement. Imperfect repair between successive
 

replacements is made after each failure so that the failure rate E{Z |L ≥ } = P̄r(x)h(x) dx (9)
0
remains below a certain threshold level.
For Strategy 2. By definition the total expected cost C() of one
Strategy 2. Maintenance with periodic preventive maintenance
cycle is given by the sum of preventive replacement cost, corrective
The component is operated under a block-based periodic replacement cost and repair cost within a preventive replacement:
replacement. Imperfect repair between successive replacements is
made after each failure so that the failure rate remains below a [cr · (expected number of repairs during a preventive replacement)
certain threshold level. + cc · (expected number of corrective replacements during
a preventive replacement) + cp ]
Assumption. All maintenance time is negligible. C() = (10)
one cycle of a preventive replacment
Notation. Imperfect repair
The total expected maintenance cost rate C() when using the
When using a replacement, the system is “as good as new” interval time  is equal to
after the repair action is completed. When the minimal repair is
cr Nr () + cc Nc () + cp
used, the component is “as bad as old” after the repair action. The C() = (11)
replacement and minimal repair may thus be considered as two 
extreme cases, and components subject to imperfect repair will be Proof 2. If N() represents the number of failures during (0, ],
somewhere between these two extremes [15]. Hence, an imperfect N() is obviously the renewal function for the renewal process with
repair model is suggested for a component: the repair is a perfect the interarrival time distribution S(t) and can be determined by the
repair with a certain failure probability Pr(t); the repair is a minimal solution method to the renewal function in renewal theory [16].
one with 1 − Pr(t). In the case, the successive perfect repair times Therefore, the expected number of corrective replacements can be
form a renewal process with interarrival time distribution gotten.
  t   

S(t) = 1 − exp − Pr(x)h(x) dx (5) Nc () = S() + Nc ( − x) dS(x) (12)

0 0

and the corresponding failure rate Pr(t)·h(t). and the expected number of repairs

3.2. Modeling strategies Nr () = expected number of repairs during a corrective replacement ·

cumulative probability of a corrective replacement

Within each strategy there are several component states and
+ expected number of repairs during a preventive replacement ·
each one contributes to component risk. To calculate the various
contributions to the total cost for each strategy, the renewal theory cumulative probability of a preventive replacement
is used in time-series processes. In our maintenance model, two  

maintenance strategies are performed by the different combina- + Nr ( − x) dS(x) = E{Z |L < }S() + E{Z |L ≥ }S̄()
tions of preventive maintenance, repair or corrective replacement. 0
     
For Strategy 1. Let C denotes the total expected maintenance
+ Nr ( − x) dS(x) = S̄(x) h(x) dx − S() + Nr ( − x) dS(x)
cost per unit of time over an indefinitely long period. By defini- 0 0 0
tion the total expected cost C() of one cycle  is given by the sum (13)
of cost rates of preventive maintenance and repair or corrective
replacement and repair:
{[cr · (expected number of repairs during a corrective replacement) + cc ] · cumulative probability of a corrective replacement
+ [cr · (expected number of repairs during a preventive replacement) + cp ] · cumulative probability of a preventive replacement}
C() =
one cycle of a replacement
(6)
where cc , cp and cr are the costs of the corrective- and consequential
replacement, preventive replacement and imperfect repair respec-
tively. cc includes unplanned replacement cost and unplanned 3.3. Optimizing strategies
unavailability cost.
Thus, the total expected maintenance cost rate C() is equal to It is expected to decide at which intervals to maintain the com-
{[cr E{Z |L < } + cc ] · S() + [cr E{Z |L ≥ } + cp ] · S̄()} ponent and whether to keep the component in an old state or
C() =  replace the component with an identical component. These deci-
0
S̄(x) dx sions are made by comparing the annual cost of the component and
1712 X. Zhang, E. Gockenbach / Electric Power Systems Research 81 (2011) 1709–1714

Table 3
Costs of different components (D ).
total cost rate
Component
Optimum frequency
cost rate

cp cc cr
preventive maintenance Transformer 3535 4771 172
Circuit-breaker 260 6270 55
corrective-&consequential
maintenance
repair 0.3

maintenance frequency

failure rate (1/year)

Fig. 1. Optimization of maintenance frequency.
0.2

Table 1
The parameters of Eq. (3).
0.1
n m b (K) B (K)

7.0 2.3 6000 17,000

L0 (year) ϑ0 (K) E0 (kV/mm) M0 (N/mm2 )

0
4.5 × 10 4
298 5.0 2.4 × 10−4
0 7 14 21 28 35
year

checking whether the component has reached its economic life. The
economic life is also referred to as the minimum cost life or opti-
mal maintenance interval. The optimal maintenance interval is the
solution that minimizes the sum of these maintenance cost rates:
dC()
=0
d
Fig. 1 shows that the cost rate of preventive maintenance gen-
erally increases with higher maintenance frequency. On the other
hand, the cost rates of corrective and consequential maintenance
(including repair) associated with failures decrease as the main-
tenance frequency increases. The total cost rate, the sum of these
three individual cost rates, exhibits a minimum, and so an “opti-
mum” or target level of reliability is achieved. Thus the integrated
cost benefit analyses involving customers and their decisions, in an
asset management’s view, could be a more rewarding and applica-
ble approach.
4. Simulation results from application studies
The significant requirement in applying reliability models is a
choice of the model parameters. This research work is initiated to
collect nearly 120,000 failure data of historical events of electri-
cal equipment in the special failure statistic from the year 1920
Fig. 2. Calculated failure rates for circuit-breakers and transformers (dotted).
history, operational stresses and component type (Fig. 2). The fail-
ure rates increase with operation year and their increases become
larger after a certain operation year. When a circuit-breaker is over-
(14)
hauled, the value of failure rate decreases to the value of the more
new equipment. However, as wear parts without exchange may
remain, the value of failure rate will increase like the shift curve.
Under the maintenance policy of strategy 2, repair and cor-
rective replacement are likely to be performed several times
during the lifetime of equipment. Figs. 3 and 4 show the repair
and replacement characteristics of circuit-breakers and transform-
ers with a series of increments. Since the ageing leads to the
degradation of equipment, the number of repair and replace-
ment for circuit-breakers and transformers begins to grow rapidly.
This means that the preventive replacement of circuit-breakers
and transformers should be planned at 20 and 34 operation
years, respectively. It is obvious that transformers have more
numbers of repair and replacement than circuit-breakers. The
0.1
number of repair and corrective replacement

to 2005 [1]. These failure record data is dependent more on the

component age than the calendar year. Furthermore, certain infor-
mation on specific damage data, especially without disturbance of
network operation, has been acquired. Therefore, the detailed fail-
ure statistic can provide information about the actual conditions
and economic assessment of these increasingly old components as 0.05
shown in Tables 1–3.
In light of this goal, this work attempts to integrate so suffi-
cient failure data into the reliability models that failure rate of
electrical equipment can be modeled as a function of operating

Table 2
The parameters of Eq. (3).

Component 0
0 10 20
˛ E M ϑ year
Transformer 11.6 2.2E0 6.8M0 40 ◦ C
Fig. 3. Calculated expected number of repair and corrective replacement (dotted)
Circuit-breaker 8.3 2.0E0 7.2M0 40 ◦ C
for circuit-breakers according to strategy 2.
 X. Zhang, E. Gockenbach / Electric Power Systems Research 81 (2011) 1709–1714 1713

0.4 1
number of repair and corrective replacement

number of repair and replacement

0.5
0.2

0
0 10 20 30
0 year
0 7 14 21 28 35
year Fig. 5. Calculated expected number of repair (below-dotted), corrective and pre-
ventive (above-dotted) replacements for circuit-breakers according to strategy 1.
Fig. 4. Calculated expected number of repair (dotted) and corrective replacement
for transformers according to strategy 2.
1

number of occasions depends on the failure rate of the equip-

ment.

number of repair and replacement

When the failure rate increases, the number and cost rate of
corrective and consequential maintenance (including repair) asso-
ciated with failures increase as the operation time increases. On the
other hand, the number and cost rate of preventive maintenance
0.5
generally decreases under the age-dependent strategy 1. In the case
of either strategy 1 or strategy 2, those failed circuit breakers and
transformers have more repairs than corrective replacements. The
probability of the equipment degradation increases, so we would
perform more corrective maintenance. Taking into account this
dependence it is clear that the contributions due to preventive
maintenance should decrease, because corrective maintenances
have opposite effect. The total cost rate, the sum of these three 0
0 10 20 30
individual cost rates, exhibits a minimum, and so an “optimum” or year
target level of reliability is achieved.
It will be useful to compare strategy 1 (Figs. 5 and 6) with Fig. 6. Calculated expected number of repair (below-dotted), corrective and pre-
strategy 2 for circuit breakers and transformers. In accordance ventive (above-dotted) replacements for transformers according to strategy 1.)
with strategy 1 or strategy 2, circuit breakers have different opti-
mal preventive intervals of 28 or 20 years with minimum cost
different maintenance strategies. From the failure statistic [1],
rate, respectively. Strategy 2 is more wasteful since more preven-
circuit breakers and transformers have the actual cost rate of
tive replacements occur and more unfailed circuit-breakers are
260 D /year and 3535 D /year for maintenance when a preventive
removed than those under a similar policy based on age. As might
maintenance is executed every 10 and 2 years.
be suspected however, the cost rate of transformers will be more
However, different optimal intervals and annual costs of main-
under strategy 1. This is because stochastic failures cause more
tenance for circuit breakers and transformers can be obtained
expensive costs of corrective and consequential maintenance. As
according to strategy 1 or strategy 2. By minimizing the cost rate
utilizing strategy 1, the preventive replacement cannot be fully
of 100 and 158 D /year, the interval of preventive maintenance is
scheduled, and the policy may therefore be complex to administer.
optimized by 28 or 20 years if strategy 1 or strategy 2 is caught
The final result in the economic evaluation is to estimate the
into effect for circuit-breakers, respectively. Under these circum-
annual cost of maintenance according to different maintenance
stances of strategies 1 and 2, transformers have cost rate of 266 or
strategies of strategy 1 and strategy 2. Table 4 shows the annual
250 D /year with the interval of 26 and 34 years, respectively. Com-
maintenance cost and optimal maintenance interval according to
paring the actual cost rate of 260 and 3535 D /year, circuit breakers
and transformers have a significant decrease in cost rate by the
implement of effective maintenance strategies.
Table 4
Annual maintenance cost (D /year) and optimal maintenance interval (year) accord-
ing to different maintenance strategies. 5. Conclusion
Strategy Circuit-breaker Transformer
Assuming that all the activities have the same period of oper-
Cost rate Interval Cost rate Interval ation, the block based maintenance yields a fewer failure and a
Statistic 260 10 3535 2 higher cost than the age based maintenance. In this case the min-
1 100 28 266 26 imum cost rate with an optimized interval can be obtained since
2 158 20 250 34
the contribution from preventive maintenance is compensated by
1714 X. Zhang, E. Gockenbach / Electric Power Systems Research 81 (2011) 1709–1714
the contributions from repair and corrective maintenance. The
only way to find the minimum risk is to optimize the mainte-
nance process to obtain the appropriate value of the operation
period and the maintenance duration for a set of fixed reliabil-
ity parameters. The optimization process also impacts the cost,
because risks not only strongly depend on the failure rate of the
equipment in the operation activity but also on the cost of the
implementing maintenance actions. The results show that it is
not difficult to conclude which strategy is better in a general
sense. For circuit-breakers, the better strategy is strategy 1 and
the worse strategy is to perform strategy 2 in view of cost rate.
To the contrary, transformers have the minimum cost rate with
strategy 2.
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Xiang Zhang received the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from
Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 1989, 1992, and from the Aachen University
of Technology, Aachen, Germany, in 2002, respectively. From 1992 to 1997 she was
a research engineer at Xi’an High Voltage Apparatus Research Institute, Xi’an, China.
Currently she is a research fellow on asset management of electrical equipment and
networks of the Schering-Institute of High Voltage Technology at the University of
Hanover, Germany. Her main areas of interest include high voltage apparatus, gas
discharge, arc modeling, and asset management.
Ernst Gockenbach (M’83-SM’88-F’01) received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electri-
cal Engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany, in
1974 and 1979, respectively. From 1979 to 1982, he worked at Siemens AG, Berlin,
Germany. From 1982 to 1990, he worked with E. Haefely AG, Basel, Switzerland.
Since 1990, he has been professor and director of the Schering-Institute of High Volt-
age Technology at the University of Hanover, Germany. He is member of VDE and
CIGRE, chairman of GIGRE Study Committee D1 Materials and Emerging Technolo-
gies for Electro-technology, and a member of national and international Working
Groups (IEC, IEEE) for Standardization of High Voltage Test and Measuring Proce-
dures.