RAMD and transient analysis of a juice clarification unit in sugar plants

Abstract

The main objective of present work is to analyse the reliability measures of a juice clarification unit in sugar plants under the concepts of various redundancy polices. The juice clarification unit (JCU) is a complex system having eight subsystems configured according to various redundancies internally. It is assumed that all the associated random variables follow exponential distribution. The Markov birth–death process and basic reliability arguments are used to derive Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Dependability (RAMD) measures as well as Runge–Kutta forth order is used to derive transient solution. The numerical results for reliability, availability, maintainability, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), and dependability are derived to identify the most sensitive component. The system attains transient availability 0.995881 at 5-time units. To highlight the importance of the study numerical results of transient availability are derived by making 10% and 50% variation in failure and repair rates. The derived numerical results of the proposed model draw significant insights that can be directly used in the design and maintenance process of juice clarification unit. It will improve the plant efficiency. It will give designers a solid plan to use resources intelligently and make strategies that make juice clarification unit live to work better.