skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Reliability, maintainability, and availability engineering for integrated community energy systems

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5543753· OSTI ID:5543753

The reliability, maintainability, and availability (RMA) engineering methodologies for integrated community energy systems (ICES) are reported. Since the tangible and intangible costs of a system failure may outweigh the benefits of the ICES approaches, RMA consideration must be an integral part of ICES engineering. The effectiveness of system planning and design depends on component reliability information and on forecasts of community load profiles. Supply subsystems must provide sufficient capacity to meet demands in spite of maintenance and unscheduled outages. This allowance is the major task of probabilistic system planning. Because reliability and maintainability performance is partially a random process, probabilistic methodology is required for analysis and comparison. Portions of a community energy system being modified or expanded may already be in use before additional portions reach the design stage. This situation presents an opportunity to extend the RMA assessment of the existing system and to improve the additions that will be made to it. RMA engineering is essential to all phases of planning, design, construction, and operation of ICES. The methodologies presented provide a systematic, disciplined approach to predict and analyze RMA, to determine corrective actions necessary, and to achieve performance goals.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-31-109-ENG-38
OSTI ID:
5543753
Report Number(s):
ANL/CNSV-6
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English