Lifetime efficiency index model for optimal maintenance of power substation equipment based on cuckoo optimisation algorithm

This study presents a lifetime efficiency index model for substation equipment and proposes an appropriate method for the optimal maintenance of substation equipment. Along the substation equipment lifetime, due to ageing and daily operations, the failure rate increases gradually. So it is needed to do a maintenance strategy for the aim of reduction in the failure rate and improvement in the reliability of equipment. The maintenance strategy for substation equipment typically consists of preventive and corrective maintenance. By the lifetime efficiency index, one can analyse the lifetime of the equipment under the conditions of with and without maintenance. In this study, the failure rate of the equipment is modelled by the appropriate Weibull distribution. Maintenance can keep equipment in normal condition, but it incurs cost. The maintenance strategy should be optimised for the minimum maintenance cost under the required reliability condition. In order to solve this objective problem, a cuckoo optimisation algorithm (COA) is used and results are evaluated. The results based on an example show that the proposed COA was indeed capable of obtaining higher quality solutions than other methods for the optimal maintenance.