Dependability and Impact Analysis for a Universal and Flexible Power Management System

AbstractThis paper presents the final results of the activities carried out by the authors to estimate the reliability and availability performances of an innovative modular power conversion architecture, developed within the UNIFLEX-PM (Universal and Flexible Power Management) EU project. The performed study addresses also the analysis of the effects on system stochastic performances deriving from basic components wear out phenomena, and the ones deriving from the adoption of different redundancy strategies and maintenance policies.The UNIFLEX-PM architecture represents an innovative solution for power management in the distribution networks, thus the reliability and availability studies have been focused on obtaining basic figures useful to define the effectiveness of the proposed solution through comparison with a power converter architecture already used for building commercial products and assumed as the reference case. The results show that with a suitable technological choice for some critical basic components (such as the DC link capacitors), the UNIFLEX-PM stochastic performances are fully comparable with the ones provided by the commercial solution.Key Words: ReliabilityAvailabilityMonte Carlo methodpower conversionpower distribution Additional informationNotes on contributorsMagro Micaela CaserzaMicaela Caserza Magro received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Genova, Italy, in 2004. Actually she is a research grant at the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Genova. Her research activities include preventive/predictive maintenance methods for industrial automation and power systems. Moreover she also carries on studies on reliability and availability models and methods for estimating the stochastic performances of power systems.Stefano SavioStefano Savio received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Genova, Italy, in 1989. Associate Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Genova, he gives lectures in Electrical Machines and Reliability and Safety for electrical and transportation systems within first and second level graduation courses. Author of more than 100 papers, he has developed system simulators for the electrical and mechanical analysis of DC and AC fed railway and metro systems, provided with optimisation algorithms for the solution of energy saving problems. His current scientific interests concern Product Assurance assessment for industrial and transport applications, as far as modelling and simulation oriented to RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability & Safety) prediction are concerned. From 2006 to 2009 he was involved in the UNIFLEX-PM project as scientific responsible for RAM predictive analysis and leader of the Work Package Reliability and Economics.