Reliability Modelling for the Scheduling of Plant Work in Majority Vote Mode

Downtime data have been acquired from a 1980 MW capacity coal‐fired power station. These data refer to a pulverised fuel system which comprises ten mills, each of which, for the purpose of reliability analysis, has six sets of components liable to failure. The majority voting of the mills was a seven‐out‐of‐ten system. Individual unit failure patterns are determined using a family of exponential models and are used to provide total group reliability patterns, and a computerised alogorithm for analysis of the voting system is developed. A methodology for scheduling majority vote equipment working with non‐symmetrical overhaul downtimes is presented.