Intelligent Maintenance Prioritization and Optimization Strategies for Thermal Power Plant Boilers
Noor Fazreen Ahmad Fuzi1, Firas Basim Ismail2

1Noor Fazreen Ahmad Fuzi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Power Generation Unit, Institute of Power Engineering IPE, Universiti Tenaga Nasional UNITEN, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.
2Firas Basim Ismail, Power Generation Unit, Institute of Power Engineering IPE, Universiti Tenaga Nasional UNITEN, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Manuscript received on 25 September 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 04 October 2019 | Manuscript Published on 22 October 2019 | PP: 31-35 | Volume-8 Issue-3S October 2019 | Retrieval Number: C10071083S19/2019©BEIESP | DOI: 10.35940/ijrte.C1007.1083S19
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: Steam boiler also known as steam generator is an integral component in thermal power plants requiring effective maintenance scheduling to extend the overall life cycle of the boiler. However, steam boilers are commonly plagued with issues such as boiler shutdown and tube leakage. Industry experts adopted preventative maintenance to overcome the repetition of outage in steam boilers. This method is flawed in the aspect of redundant maintenance activities. The repetition in maintenance activities will lead to reduced work productivity and increased maintenance operational costs. In this study, a maintenance optimization system specialized in ranking, prioritization and optimization based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) are chosen. The AHP is used to rearrange the maintenance activities according to its priority while the PSO is an intelligent swarm used to optimize the operational duration and maintenance cost based on the result formed from AHP after implemented using MATLAB software. This work proposes maintenance scheduling based on minimization of the objectives focusing on the forming new list of the maintenance activities with the optimal operational duration and maintenance cost.
Keywords: Steam Boiler, Maintenance Optimization, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Particle Swarm Optimization.
Scope of the Article: Mechanical Maintenance