Preventive Maintenance Basis

Project Overview Report Update

TR-106857- R1

Final Report, November 1998

EPRI Project Manager

John P. Gaertner

EPRI 3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304 PO Box 10412, Palo Alto, California 94303 USA
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Preventive Maintenance Basis: Project Overview Report Update, EPRI, Palo Alto, CA: 1998.
Report TR-106857-R1.

iii
REPORT SUMMARY

A variety of preventive maintenance (PM) tasks are being implemented at different frequencies
at U.S. nuclear plants for nominally the same equipment, with little documented basis to support
the tasks, or their intervals beyond fundamental vendor manual information. The Preventive
Maintenance Basis project was developed in response to the requests of the EPRI nuclear
membership to provide a technical basis and recommendations for the assignment of PM tasks
that go beyond the available vendor information.

Background
A large fraction of U.S. nuclear plants is in the process of reducing preventive maintenance (PM)
costs and improving equipment performance by more closely matching PM tasks with the
functional importance of equipment. For this to succeed, utilities require information on the most
appropriate tasks and task intervals for the important equipment types, while accounting for the
influences of duty cycle and service conditions. This data has not previously existed in an
accessible form, often resulting in arbitrary and unsuitable tasks and intervals that increase
maintenance costs and diminish reliability.

Objectives
The Preventive Maintenance Basis will serve the nuclear utility maintenance community as
an essential reference for preventive maintenance task selection on common major
components. The PM Basis reports contain a database of maintenance task contents, task
interval recommendations, and a synopsis of the associated technical basis for 39 major
components. The technical basis states the reasons for each task and the relationship between
the equipments failure locations, failure mechanisms, the influences on equipment
degradation, and the timing of failures.

Approach
Expert panels composed of knowledgeable individuals from EPRI, EPRI member utilities,
and manufacturers were employed to formulate the bases and range of PM task options
presented for the selected equipment. Most of the expert panels addressed a small number
of closely associated component types, e.g. three types of pressure relief valves. A utility
oversight committee, the PM Basis steering committee, was established to oversee and direct
this process. While the inclusion of any equipment-specific recommendations was made by
the individual expert panels, the steering committee maintained purview over the project
structure and process, selected and prioritized component types, assisted with expert panel
member recruiting, and approved the methodology employed for establishing the PM tasks,

v
task intervals, and rationales. The PM Basis project steering committee was also accountable
to the EPRI Operations and Maintenance Cost Control Target Steering Committee for
ensuring all utility needs were considered and met.

Results
This report contains an overview of the objectives, project organization, and the process
employed to develop, describe, and use the 39 component type PM programs and
supporting technical bases. Each component type report is individually presented as a
separate volume of this series.

EPRI Perspective
The PM Basis Reports is one of numerous related EPRI products to support PM optimization
at nuclear plants. Other products include Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)
demonstrations and methods, RCM assessment software, methods for identifying predictive
maintenance opportunities, integration of PM with plant work processes, and methods for
Maintenance Rule implementation. A design requirement of the PM Basis project was that
the results be consistent with and complementary to these other inter-related products.
EPRI further required that the PM Basis Reports must have credibility among nuclear plant
maintenance engineers. Therefore, the unique approach for this project was crafted; that is,
using a highly structured facilitation to enable small groups of utility component- experts to
develop PM tasks, frequencies, and their bases. Not only was this approach designed to
produce widely accepted results; but alternative approachesincluding engineering
analysis of failure modes, failure data analysis, or industry consensus surveyswere
considered to be prohibitively expensive. Wide acceptance and use of the PM Bases to date
have borne out the success of the approach.
Also, EPRI believes that the depth and breadth of the supporting information on
degradation mechanisms enables the PM Basis reports to be used for a wide range of
engineering applications. Many of these applications have already been demonstrated by
utilities. These and others are discussed in this overview report. EPRI is committed to
continue support of PM Bases applications to reduce maintenance costs, increase plant
performance, and maintain safety and efficient regulatory compliance.

TR-106857-R1
Interest Categories
Nuclear component reliability
Nuclear plant operations and maintenance

Keywords
Preventive Maintenance
Maintenance optimization
Component reliability
Power plant reliability

vi
ABSTRACT

Preventive maintenance (PM) programs in US nuclear plants have evolved from strict
compliance with the vendors general recommendations which are likely to be conservative,
to more flexible tasks which are intended to accommodate the plant service conditions.
These PM programs have evolved piecemeal from the vendor recommendations and
historical experience, with the result that their logical structure and coherent basis may be
technically weak and scarcely recognized. The historical reasons for the performance of
specific PM tasks are usually poorly documented, if at all. The result is that relationships
and dependencies between the tasks, their limits of applicability and justifications for task
intervals, are not well known. Utilities have expressed the desire for a technical basis and
rationale capable of supporting the maintenance tasks for each major component type and of
facilitating appropriate changes to them. The PM Basis project provides the utility user with
the technical basis for PM tasks and task intervals and also gives the necessary information
to adapt the tasks and intervals to plant conditions. A recommended program of PM tasks, a
synopsis of the task content and intervals, and the reasons why these choices are technically
valid in a variety of circumstances, are presented for 39 major component types. Each
component type is treated in a separate volume of this series. This project overview report
presents the project objectives and organization, describes the content, interpretation, and
use of the PM Basis database, and explains the process by which the information was
obtained.

vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

EPRI and the authors gratefully acknowledge the input, guidance, and support
provided by the PM Basis project Utility Steering Committee and the members of each
component expert panel. The steering committee was comprised of the following
utilities:

x John Arnold, Commonwealth Edison Company

x Edwin Rogers, Entergy Operations, Inc.

x Mark Forsyth, Houston Lighting and Power Company, chairman

x Kevin Higgins, Northeast Nuclear Energy Company

x David Rollins, Omaha Public Power District

x Brain Ferguson, Ontario Hydro

x Howard Arnold, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

x Rod Sorrell, Texas Utilities Electric Company

x Bruce Boyum, Washington Public Power Supply

ix
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Need and Objective

Utilities have expressed the desire for a technical basis and rationale capable of
supporting the maintenance tasks for each major component type. The PM Basis
project provides the utility user with the technical basis for PM tasks and task intervals
and gives information to adapt the intervals to plant conditions. A recommended PM
program, a synopsis of the task content and intervals, and the reasons why these
choices are technically valid in a variety of circumstances, are presented for 39 major
component types.

The project had two major objectives. The first was to summarize a sample of industry
experience on which tasks and task intervals comprise a sound, cost-effective PM
program for a large number of major component types. The second objective was to
outline the relationships between a components degradation mechanisms and the
factors that influence them, the time scale of progression to failure, and the
opportunities to discover and prevent them, so that utilities can adapt the programs to
plant conditions.

The PM Basis Product

PM Basis reports for the 39 component types is available as a series of volumes under
the TR-106857 report number. All of these reports have been completed at the time of
writing this overview report. The overview report is presented as a master report for
the entire project to detail the process by which the PM Basis was developed, and to
outline its potential and current uses.

The PM Basis was tasked by the steering committee to be a body of information that
supports and includes an interpretive summary of utility power plant experience on
preventive maintenance for each component type. Each report should contain, as much
as practical in one place, all the PM tasks, task intervals, task rationales, and the most
important influences on equipment degradation and maintenance for that specific
component. This body of information should provide additional context and
perspective when plant personnel are seeking to interpret vendor requirements in the
xi
light of plant specific conditions, or when they need to understand the motivations for
and limitations of PM tasks when modifying task content or extending task intervals.
In many instances the information can be used in concert with input from the
manufacturer to understand how vendor requirements might be relaxed in specific
circumstances. The information in the PM Basis reports is intended to complement, not
to replace the PM instructions in vendor manuals.

Project Organization

To promote utility buy-in and support, a utility oversight committee, the PM Basis
project steering committee, was established. The steering committee was comprised of
the EPRI project manager, a utility chairman, and 10 other utility members supported
by the project staff. The steering committee, through the EPRI project manager, was
also accountable to the Utility Advisory Committee for ensuring all utility needs were
considered and met. The steering committee was granted purview over the structure of
the PM Basis project, the prioritization and selection of the component types to be
analyzed, the composition of the expert panels, and the methodology employed for the
development of the component PM rationales.

For each component type an expert panel of utility component experts provided the
raw data on equipment degradation and the range of PM task options for the selected
equipment. Each panel, as far as practical, was composed of knowledgeable
individuals from EPRI member utilities, manufacturers, EPRI, and others. Most of the
expert panels addressed a small number of closely associated component types, e.g.
three types of pressure relief valves. The panels developed the preferred PM practices
and raw material on equipment degradation in tabular form. The contractors
developed the task rationale from all the data supplied, and submitted the component
report to the expert panel for comment and approval.

Process

To construct the rationale for a PM program it has been found that a large amount of
very specific information is required. It was essential that the meetings of component
experts were used to maximum efficiency to provide this information in a short time.
For this reason the meetings quickly became highly structured, closely following a
multi-step process to ensure disciplined coverage of all the required aspects.

Basic data obtained from the expert panels consisted of the hardware locations that are
the sites of degradation and failure, the kind of degradation experienced and the main
factors that influence it, the time development of the degradation processes and
failures, the means to detect equipment condition and to intervene, the higher level PM
tasks that would be used to implement these measures, and the task content.
Supplementary information was added such as examples taken from nuclear power
plant systems, definitions of applicable duty cycle and service conditions that influence

xii
task intervals, a discussion of the risk to reliability of doing intrusive maintenance, the
most common or dominant failure locations and mechanisms taken from industry
sources, the principle focus of each PM task, and the availability of design
modifications that can improve reliability or decrease dependence on preventive
maintenance.

The most important elements of the process for developing the rationale for each task
are shown in the flow chart of Figure 1.

PM Task Rationale

When the basic data had been obtained and documented it was screened in various
ways to discover the more common types of degradation and failures addressed by
each task, which of them is most responsible for the timing of the task, the tasks that are
aided by other PM tasks which also address the same failure locations and conditions,
and the tasks that are most relied on because they do not have a backup from other
tasks. This analysis also identifies a logical time interval for each task that is
determined by the time scales of occurrence of the failures which are addressed. The
technical basis for each task is presented under the following three headings:

Failure Locations and Causes:

This section states the failure locations and degradation mechanisms that the task is
designed to deal with, generally with the most commonly encountered situations
described first. This section provides an overview of the main focus of the task.

Progression of Degradation to Failure:

This section summarizes the information on times of occurrence of the dominant

failures. It shows whether the failures should be expected to be predominantly random
in nature and indicates the time scale over which the chance of a failure should become
appreciable, or whether a wearout behavior is anticipated, and the relevant time period
that is expected to be free of failures. It must be emphasized that this is a synthesis of
many contributing processes over all the failure locations addressed by the task. This
section also shows which of the failure locations and mechanisms is most likely to cause
trouble if the interval is extended too far.

Fault Discovery and Intervention:

This section explains remaining aspects of the choice of one task over another, the
interaction among tasks and the reconciliation of the expert panels choice of intervals
for the task with the contractors analysis of the basic data that the expert panel
provided. Despite the uncertainties in the data, the result was almost always a clear
validation of the judgment of the expert panel in the limiting intervals that they

xiii
assigned to the task. This result is a significant validation of industry PM assumptions
and programs.

The PM Template

Each PM Basis report includes a PM Template which summarizes the program of tasks
and task intervals for the equipment type. The program displayed in the Template is a
technically defensible PM program, but it may not be the optimum for a particular
plant. Each plant should base its PM program on appropriate vendor
recommendations and its own history of preventive and corrective maintenance. For a
plant that already has a PM program that is based on its own history, the Template can
serve as a baseline for comparison, and the rationale section will probably indicate why
their program is appropriate, or if it may not be appropriate in some aspects. For a
plant that does not have an extensive operating history with a particular component
type, the Template can be used in conjunction with vendor recommendations directly
as a default program, with gradual changes anticipated as information is fed back in
the future from a living program.

Maintenance Risk and Correlations with Reliability

The term maintenance risk is used to represent effects that accompany preventive
maintenance that tend to increase failure rates rather than to decrease them. The point
was demonstrated during the early part of this project when utility data from nuclear
power plants on Air Operated Valve (AOV) reliability was correlated with the PM tasks
being performed on them. A significant negative correlation was discovered between
the frequency of intrusive preventive maintenance (i.e. internal inspections, parts
replacement, and overhauls) and the reliability of the valves.

Members of the expert panels were therefore routinely asked whether or not the
component type being considered presented a significantly higher risk of further
failures if intrusive preventive maintenance was performed too frequently. Their
responses provided input to a discussion of the level of conservatism represented by
the task intervals, and the kinds of failures they had experienced with the equipment
that were attributable to maintenance error.

Uses of the PM Basis

The information in the PM Basis reports was originally intended to be used during
large scale updating of a whole plant PM program such as an RCM analysis. In this
application it would make task selection more efficient, promote consistency between
analysts, and support justifications for relinquishing vendor recommendations or for
making other changes. It could also be used when modifying any individual PM task
as a result of changes in performance, modifications to equipment, or equipment aging.

xiv
EPRI has developed quick vertical slice audits of utility PM programs carried out by
sampling equipment in two or three systems at a plant. This provides a snapshot in a
few days of how the plant PM program compares to industry practice as exemplified in
the EPRI PM Basis.

The PM Basis may also find use for validating corrective actions and goals in the
maintenance rule when these consist of changes to preventive maintenance. Important
aspects could be the reasons the task or interval change is the correct response, and the
PM activities the task should include.

Many other uses of this information have been suggested by utilities including the
systematic optimization of PM task intervals, the evaluation of the relative benefit
obtained by performing a particular task, and the development of a repository of
industry experience on equipment degradation and PM effectiveness as an updatable
electronic database containing guidance for its use in applications.

xv
Figure 1
Flow Chart: PM Development Process

Influences on
Hardware the degradation
locations that that start or
degrade or fail promote it 2
1

Timing features
Actions that Degradation of each
could detect or mechanisms for degradation
prevent the each location mechanism 5
condition 3 4

Most likely
PM tasks for Degree of failure causes
each location reliance on each
that include the task 8
above actions 6 7

How long it
Failure locations Principle takes before the
covered by each motivation for failure point is
PM task 9 performing each reached 11
task 10

Duty cycle Outline of PM Time constraints

aspects that task content on the task
affect task intervals 14
timing 12 13

Service Task intervals

conditions that for critical/duty
affect task cycle/service
timing 15 conditions 16
CONTENTS

REPORT SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... v

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................................... ix

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................. xi

CONTENTS ................................................................................................................ xvii

LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... xix

1 INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................1
1.1 Background .........................................................................................................1
1.2 Objectives ...........................................................................................................2
1.3 The PM Basis Reports and Their Interpretation..................................................2
1.4 Definition of Preventive Maintenance..................................................................5
1.5 Major Components..............................................................................................6
1.6 Project Organization............................................................................................7
1.7 Component Expert Panels ..................................................................................8
1.8 Project Learning Curve .......................................................................................8
References...................................................................................................................9

2 USE OF THE EPRI PM BASIS.............................................................................11

2.1 PM Optimization................................................................................................11
2.2 PM Audits..........................................................................................................12
2.3 Evaluation of the Benefit of PM Changes..........................................................13

xvii
 2.4 Improving The Use And Integration of Predictive PM Tasks.............................14
2.5 Craft Information Feedback...............................................................................15
2.6 Electronic Database Of The EPRI PM Basis Data ............................................15

3 PROCESS FOR DEVELOPING THE PM RATIONALE ........................................17

3.1 Overview ...........................................................................................................17
3.2 The Expert Panel Meeting.................................................................................18
3.3 Failure Locations...............................................................................................25
3.4 Degradations and Influences ............................................................................28
3.5 Time Information for Degradation and Failure ..................................................31
3.6 Discovery Opportunities and PM Strategies......................................................32
3.7 The PM Template..............................................................................................38
3.8 The PM Task Basis and Content ......................................................................41
3.9 Duty Cycles .......................................................................................................45
3.10 Service Conditions ............................................................................................46
3.11 Maintenance Risk..............................................................................................48

xviii
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Flow Chart: PM Development Process....................................................xvi

Figure 3-1 PM Template: Medium Voltage Motors ...................................................24
Figure 3-2 PM Basis Table 3.1 Medium Voltage Switchgear .................................26
Figure 3-3 Failure Time Characteristics Taken Into Account by the PM Basis..........33
Figure 3-4 Table 3.2 Low Voltage Motors...............................................................42

xix
1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Many U.S. nuclear plants are in the process of reducing preventive maintenance (PM)
costs and improving equipment performance by more closely matching PM tasks with
the functional importance of equipment. For this to succeed, utilities require
information on the most appropriate tasks and task intervals for the important
equipment types, while accounting for the influences of functional importance, duty
cycle and service conditions. This data that not exist previously in an accessible form,
often resulting in arbitrary and unsuitable tasks and intervals, that increased
maintenance costs and diminished reliability.

EPRI has long recognized the need to provide its members with maintenance
optimization tools and was the first to promote the use of reliability centered
maintenance (RCM) in optimizing PM activities in the power industry. RCM was
developed in the 1960s by the commercial airline industry to apply reliability concepts
to maintenance and the design of maintenance programs. It was hoped and later
proven, that the RCM approach to preventing equipment, and ultimately aircraft,
failures through maintenance specifically aimed at preventing equipment failure
mechanisms, would maintain the high reliability desired for commercial aircraft and
would in turn be cost effective. As good a tool as RCM proved to be in optimizing PM
activities, it was not completely embraced by the nuclear utility community.
Nevertheless, utilities continue to seek to improve maintenance at reduced cost.

As deregulation of the electric power industry approaches, many utilities, especially

those with nuclear units, recognize the fact that they must reduce operational and
maintenance costs to be a low-cost producer of electric power. One area of opportunity
is the optimization of preventive maintenance programs, with the aim of making them
technically sound and as cost-effective as possible.

Compounding the relatively straightforward reasons driving PM Optimization, i.e.

reliability, cost control and cost reduction, is the US Nuclear Regulatory Commissions
issuance of 10CFR50.65, the maintenance rule1. In brief, the maintenance rule
requires US nuclear utilities to develop a reliability and availability monitoring
program for the systems, structures, and components (SSCs) considered to be within
Introduction

the scope of the rule. Such monitoring will be designed2 to determine the effectiveness
of the maintenance performed on these SSCs. In addition, the maintenance rule also
requires the utility to evaluate industry-wide operating experience and to account for
that experience when modifying their maintenance activities. PM modifications are
expected to be the most likely corrective action when maintenance is found not to be
effective under the maintenance rule.

Despite these motivations, most PM optimization techniques, including RCM, are not
designed to develop the time to failure relationships required to justify the selection of
PM task intervals. The US nuclear power industry suffers from a general lack of this
kind of component data. An additional factor missing in PM optimization programs is
the understanding of the factors that influence the progression of the degradation
mechanisms for the given component. Not understanding these relationships and how
they affect PM tasks and intervals, has made the development of cost-effective and
technically appropriate PM programs difficult if not impossible. At the end of 1993
EPRI published a report Guide for Determining Preventive Maintenance Task
Intervals3. This report presented task intervals for nominally equivalent PM tasks for
major equipment types from about two dozen nuclear power plants. The data showed
a wide variation in task intervals among the plants with little preference for particular
intervals for similar tasks on similar equipment. Most utility maintenance personnel
thought that these results reflected a general lack of specific technical basis for the
components and tasks addressed.

As a result of the need to reduce maintenance costs and to comply with the
maintenance rule, utilities are now experiencing the need to assess both the
effectiveness and the underlying bases of their PM programs. One aspect of these
assessments is evaluating how their current PM tasks and task intervals are aligned
with industry judgments of the most effective program of such tasks.

1.2 Objectives

EPRIs PM Basis project had two major objectives. The first was to summarize a sample
of industry experience on which tasks and task intervals comprise a sound and cost-
effective PM program for a large number of major component types. The second
objective was to outline the relationships between a components degradation
mechanisms and the factors that influence them, the progression of these mechanisms
to failure, and the opportunities that are available to discover them.

1.3 The PM Basis Reports and Their Interpretation

The PM Basis project emanated from utility requests for technical information to
support the assignment of preventive maintenance (PM) tasks to nuclear power plant
equipment. Currently PM tasks are assigned on the basis of vendor recommendations
2
 Introduction

and experience at the plant, but this is often unduly biased by custom, by conservatism,
and by vendor recommendations.

The project was designed to capitalize on the different experiences at US nuclear plants,
and at the same time to make minimal demands on the time of plant personnel. Thirty
nine component types were prioritized for development and are listed in Section 1.5.
PM Basis reports for the 39 component types are available as a series of volumes under
the TR-106857 report number. This overview report is presented as a master report for
the entire project to provide a project overview that details the process by which the
PM Basis was developed. Section 1 of this overview report provides the motivation,
organization, and essential information for understanding the reports. Section 2
considers how the component reports and the technical bases can be used in utility
projects such as PM optimization, PM audits, maintenance rule compliance, developing
a plant PM Basis and in optimizing PM task intervals. Section 3 contains the process
description; it also contains a description of what is to be found in each of the
component reports, and how this information is to be interpreted.

The PM Basis was tasked by the steering committee to be a body of information that
includes an interpretive summary of utility power plant experience on preventive
maintenance for each component type. Each report contains, as much as practical in
one place, all the PM tasks, task intervals, task rationales, and the most important
influences on equipment degradation and maintenance for that specific component.
This body of information provides additional context and perspective when plant
personnel are seeking to interpret vendor requirements in the light of plant specific
conditions, or when they need to understand the motivations for and limitations of PM
tasks when modifying task content or extending task intervals.

In many instances the information can be used in concert with input from the
manufacturer to understand how vendor requirements might be relaxed in specific
circumstances. The information in the PM Basis reports is intended to complement, not
to replace the PM instructions in vendor manuals. If changes to PM tasks are being
introduced that conflict with the vendor recommendations, all the relevant industry
information sources such as Vendor Bulletins, Generic Letters, Information Notices,
SERs, and SOERs should be consulted, as well as the history of performance and as-
found condition reports at the plant in question.

Each component report in the 39 volume series is divided into 3 sections:

Section 1 explains the approach used to develop the PM basis and the strategic
considerations that influenced the expert working group. This section provides, 1) a
description of the PM Basis process steps and how they are integrated to develop the
final report, 2) cautions on the effective use of vendor manuals, and on the
determination of task intervals, 3) a component boundary description that bounds the
area of application, 4) specific component design changes that may be used to increase

3
Introduction

existing task intervals, and 5) current Industry references of which the end user should
be aware, that may have a bearing on PM task content and intervals.

Section 2 presents the recommended PM program in a concise format. The selected

PM tasks are grouped appropriately and presented as a template, covering eight sets of
application conditions such as functionally critical components with a high duty cycle
and severe service conditions. Explanatory notes provide the definition, scope, focus,
and rationale of each PM task. Examples are provided of components in nuclear power
plants that fall into the application categories used in the template. This section also
contains the definitions for component functional criticality, duty cycles, and service
conditions that are used to establish task intervals and the need for each task.

Section 3 contains a tabular summary of degradation and failure mechanism

information obtained by direct interviews with the expert panel members. The data
contained in Table 3.1 of each component report entitled, Failure Locations, Degradation
Mechanisms, and PM Strategies, represents the panels opinions of the factors that
influence failure: 1) where failures are most likely to occur, 2) the degradation
mechanisms, 3) the factors that influence the degradation, 4) how the degradation
progresses over time, 5) when failures are likely to occur, 6) the opportunities to
recognize the on-set or status of the degradation, and 7) the PM actions and strategies
that can be employed to prevent a failure from occurring. Additionally, this section
contains a list of the components dominant or most common failure locations and
mechanisms to assist the user in understanding the principal influences that drive
maintenance actions.

When reading Table 3.1, users should note that items in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th columns are
carefully aligned with each other across the page. In columns 4 and 5, entries are
assumed to repeat going down the columns, unless a new item is entered. This feature
makes the table much easier to read but requires the user to mentally fill in blank
lines with the last entry above.

Data extracted from Table 3.1 is presented in a second form, Table 3.2 entitled, PM
Tasks and their Degradation Mechanisms. Table 3.2 recompiles the data in Table 3.1
removing repetitive information, and leaving out most of the timing information. Table
3.2 focuses on the PM tasks themselves, showing very quickly which failure causes are
addressed by each task, whether or not a task covers a broad group of potential failure
locations, and which tasks are backed up by other tasks.

The expert panels are most efficient when the panel size is no more than 8 to 10
members. The expert members are experienced and knowledgeable maintenance,
component, and system engineers, and providing they consider a wide range of
applications, the information and technical basis they provide should be valid and
adaptable for all nuclear power plants. Even when fewer experts were present, their
input spanned a significant segment of industry experience. It is not feasible or

4
 Introduction

practical to develop a true consensus for the PM programs among the approximately
100 US nuclear plants without a project that consumes vastly more resources.

Consensus may eventually be gained as the task bases, and task intervals contained in
each component report are reviewed and utilized by the utility community. Plans have
been made and resources allocated to maintain and periodically improve the
information developed by the PM Basis project by distributing it as an electronic
database in MSAccess97, with update features that use Internet communications.

1.4 Definition of Preventive Maintenance

When developing the PM Basis project, project staff quickly realized that there is no
consistent definition for preventive maintenance among plant maintenance personnel.
In general, preventive maintenance is the conduct of preplanned (i.e. scheduled) tasks
necessary to ensure safe and reliable operation of the equipment. PM is the total
aggregation of these scheduled tasks along with their assigned task intervals, and
includes such tasks as oil sampling, vibration monitoring, visual inspection, lubrication,
and the scheduled removal and replacement of parts prior to equipment failure. Even
when an overhaul is not scheduled (i.e. scheduled and completed at some fixed time
interval), it could be considered to be a PM task, if it is performed as the result of
another task (e.g. vibration monitoring or oil sampling) whose primary purpose is to
monitor equipment condition and to detect the on-set or initiation of failure. Providing
the failure has not already occurred the overhaul then becomes part of the action taken
to prevent a failure. However, overhauls resulting from the occurrence of failures are
not preventive but corrective maintenance.

Each preventive maintenance task has a primary purpose. Some provide a warning of
impending failure, some include specific actions to prevent undesirable levels of
degradation, and some PM tasks are designed to discover whether standby equipment
has already failed. In the latter case, the task prevents the accumulation of extended
periods of unavailability. This is the only sense in which it is still a preventive task.
The PM Basis project utilizes three distinct types of PM task for each component PM
Template, see Section 3.7 of this report. The three types are Condition Monitoring,
Time Directed, and Failure Finding.

Together these three task types comprise the basic set of preventive maintenance
strategies employed by the majority of nuclear utilities. The PM Basis project chose
these PM task types because they provide a practical terminology that is reasonably
consistent with current usage.

To maintain a consistent focus and to provide a common starting point, the following
definition for PM was adopted for the PM Basis project:

5
Introduction

Preventive maintenance is considered to be any task or group of tasks that is

planned and scheduled, whose purpose is to prevent the unanticipated failure of
a component by the monitoring or inspection of equipment condition,
replacement or refurbishment of pre-specified parts or subcomponents prior to
their failure, or the functional testing of such equipment to determine its ability
to function upon demand.

1.5 Major Components

Thirty nine reports have been completed. Those components are:

Project Overview Report TR106857
V1 Air Operated Valves
V2 Medium Voltage Switchgear
V3 Low Voltage Switchgear
V4 Motor Control Centers
V5 Check Valves
V6 Motor Operated Valves
V7 Solenoid Operated Valves
V8 Low Voltage Electric Motors (600V and below)
V9 Medium Voltage Electric Motors (between 1kV and 5kV)
V10 High Voltage Electric Motors (5kV and greater)
V11 Direct Current Electric Motors
V12 Vertical Pumps
V13 Horizontal Pumps
V14 Reciprocating Air Compressors
V15 Rotary Screw Air Compressors
V16 Power Operated Relief Valves - Solenoid Actuated
V17 Power Operated Relief Valves - Pneumatic Actuated
V18 Pressure Relief Valves - Spring Actuated
V19 HVAC - Chillers and Compressors
V20 HVAC - Dampers and Ducting
V21 HVAC - Air Handling Equipment
V22 Inverters
V23 Battery Chargers
V24 Battery - Flooded Lead-Acid
V25 Battery - Valve-Regulated
V26 Battery - Nickel-Cadmium (NICAD)
V27 Liquid-Ring Rotary Compressor and Pump
V28 Positive Displacement Pumps
V29 Relays- Protective
V30 Relays- Control
V31 Relays- Timing
V32 Heat Exchangers

6
 Introduction

V33 Feedwater Heaters

V34 Condensers
V35 Main Feedwater Pump Turbines
V36 Terry Turbines
V37 Main Turbine EHC Hydraulics
V38 Transformers- Station Type Oil Immersed
V39 I&C Components
The project scope did not extend to equipment such as emergency diesel generators,
control rod drive mechanisms, and reactor coolant pumps because vendor manuals and
special industry projects have already treated preventive maintenance for this
equipment in significant detail. However while the above specialized equipment were
not the subject of group meetings, some guidance on their PM may be developed by
looking at the practices for applicable subcomponents groups, e.g. motors, pumps,
SOVs, and AOVs.

1.6 Project Organization

To promote utility buy-in and support, a utility oversight committee, the PM Basis
project steering committee, was established. The steering committee was comprised of
the EPRI project manager, a utility chairman, and 10 other utility members supported
by the project staff. The steering committee, through the EPRI project manager, was
also accountable to the Operations and Maintenance Cost Control Target Steering
Committee for ensuring all utility needs were considered and met.

The steering committee was granted purview over the structure of the PM Basis project,
the prioritization and selection of the component types to be analyzed, the composition
of the expert panels, and the methodology employed for the development of the
component PM tasks and rationales. From the onset the steering committee
acknowledged that they were not the technical experts, and deferred the inclusion of
any equipment-specific recommendations to the individual component expert panels.

Both the steering committee members and EPRI recognized that project success hinged
on continuing utility support through participation in the component expert panels.
Securing utility support became one of the committees primary functions.

The Component Expert Panel of utility component experts provided the raw data on
equipment degradation and the range of PM task options for the selected equipment.
Each panel, as far as practical, was composed of knowledgeable individuals from EPRI,
EPRI member utilities, manufacturers, and others. Most of the expert panels addressed
a small number of closely associated component types, e.g. three types of pressure
relief valves. The panels developed the preferred PM practices and raw material on
equipment degradation in tabular form. The contractors developed the task rationale
from all the data supplied, and submitted the component report to the expert panel for
7
Introduction

comment and approval. After their comments were incorporated, the reports were
reviewed by the EPRI project manager.

1.7 Component Expert Panels

The steering committee recommended that each expert panel should consist of a
minimum of 4 utility members to assure a reasonably diverse experience level. It was
found that panel sizes of 8 total members were ideal and panel sizes up to 10 were
manageable. Each panel met once for 4 days on average and initially began with a
minimal level of understanding of the process. Each panel was provided with an
outline of the PM Basis process, and experienced its own learning curve while
implementing the process, facilitated by two contractor personnel. By the end of the
four day meeting they were usually quite efficient at compiling the required
information. It should be noted that although a few members were skeptical at first, all
panel members have indicated concurrence with the process. Experience showed that
between 2 and 2 1/2 days were required to complete the basis for the first component
to be considered by a panel; subsequent components were much faster, taking
advantage of the panels learning curve, and the results previously documented.

On rare occasions, because of last minute emergencies, an expert panel has had as few
as two members. Although the project did not plan for this small number it is felt the
two experienced engineers could still provide a high quality set of data sufficient to
meet project needs.

The recommendations of these expert panels represent a consensus of that group on

time-directed, condition monitoring, and failure finding preventive maintenance tasks,
and task intervals with bases information that supports their conclusions. Consensus
here does not necessarily mean finding the best PM task, it means reaching
agreement on a range of tasks and task intervals with an agreed upon technical basis
derived from industry experience.

Where possible, each expert panel was composed of utility personnel with collective
experience in component and systems engineering, reliability engineering, and PM
improvement, to endeavor to produce recommendations that are focused on PM
program improvement and not just on individual component maintenance.

1.8 Project Learning Curve

A change in project methodology and content occurred after the first component
(AOV) was completed. The AOV report has more of an RCM flavor and endeavors to
describe component failures and the influences on them in terms of the equipments
failure modes that are used in safety analysis. The focus on failure modes has
subsequently changed to a focus on failure locations and mechanisms. Despite these
8
 Introduction

differences, the PM program for AOVs and the supporting information in the AOV
report, volume 1, is felt to present a technically sound and practically useful PM
program. Future updates will bring the AOV report into compliance with the current
process and format.

After the AOV report was completed, Table 3.1, Failure Locations, Degradation
Mechanism, and PM Strategy was added. Table 3.1 provided the depth of information
necessary to describe how a given component fails and what PM strategy can be
employed to defend against the failure mechanisms. However, Table 3.1 did not
completely answer how to extract the rationale for each task.

What was needed was a way to summarize the data and to connect it with information
the expert panel had provided on the most dominant failure causes, the focus of each
task, and the task interval. Table 3.2 was developed from Table 3.1 to remove the
repetitive information and to connect tasks to failure locations more directly. The
process described in Section 3.8 of this report, was then used to provide a complete and
coherent view of the rationale for each task, and to provide assurance that task intervals
suggested by the expert panel were soundly supported by the detailed data. Table 3.2
also provides the utility user with all the failure locations and causes addressed by each
task, displays whether or not a task covers a broad group of potential failure locations,
and reveals which tasks are backed up by other tasks.

References

1. Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power

Plants (the maintenance rule), 10 CFR 50.65, Federal Register, July 10, 1991.

2. Industry Guideline for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear

Power Plants, NUMARC 93-01, Revision 2, April 1996, Nuclear Energy Institute.

3. Guide for Determining Preventive Maintenance Task Intervals, EPRI TR-103147,

December 1993.

4. EPRI Training course material, Reliability Centered Maintenance, Module 4.

9
2
USE OF THE EPRI PM BASIS

2.1 PM Optimization

In the years leading up to this project the majority of US utilities were engaged in
optimizing PM programs at nuclear power plants using various types of Reliability
Centered Maintenance approaches. This project was conceived as a response to
requests for logically defensible PM tasks and intervals that had been found by the
industry to be both technically applicable and cost-effective.

Today, PM optimization can be performed at several different levels, 1) in the

traditional way as a project-oriented activity in which a large part of the plant PM
program is reviewed in a relatively short time, 2) in a similar process whose main goal
is to update previous optimization results and to bring them into conformity with the
plants Maintenance Rule program, 3) in a process that may be focused on special
aspects such as task interval adjustment and/or improved use and integration of
predictive maintenance, and 4) through a Living PM process which is a gradual
optimization over a period of several years in response to equipment condition,
maintenance experience, performance monitoring, and the evolution of maintenance
technology.

The EPRI PM Basis reports can directly support all of these approaches in various
ways. For example, the updating or selection of PM tasks for a large amount of
equipment benefits from the use of a standard baseline of tasks such as the EPRI PM
Basis, which also recommends variations to accommodate different duty cycles and
service conditions. The EPRI PM Basis provides the necessary justification for moving
from vendor recommended tasks and intervals to technically sound and more cost-
effective options. Access to the EPRI PM Basis will also promote consistent assignment
of tasks to the same type of equipment in different systems, especially when these are
selected by different analysts or by system engineers.

Consistency with a plants Maintenance Rule program may involve integration with
SSC functions, risk significance, and performance criteria. For example, components
whose failure would directly cause the failure of a risk significant SSC with reliability
performance criteria limited to only one or two failures would need to be protected by

11
Use of The EPRI PM Basis

a level of PM aimed at preventing all failures, i.e. it would be classed as a critical

component.

A component whose failure has only an indirect effect on such performance criteria, or
whose failures would contribute to more relaxed performance criteria will need PM
tasks to prevent just the most common failures, rather than all failures, i.e. would be
classed as a non-critical component. Similar considerations would apply to preventing
repetitive failures from the most common causes. The data tables in the EPRI PM Basis
reports enable these choices to be made with some precision and with a clear technical
basis.

Although such a PM basis is not required initially for Maintenance Rule programs, a
plant-specific PM Basis will be a de-facto requirement to support PM changes when
these are the substance of corrective actions and goals to regain (a)(2) status. This is the
reason some utilities are preparing a documented plant-specific PM Basis.

The most efficient way to establish a plant PM Basis is to define plant PM standards
using the EPRI templates and the experience of evaluating the first few systems. Such
plant PM standards speed the task selection process, encourage consistency in task and
interval selection, and efficiently embody much of the plant PM Basis.

A focus on specific areas of improvement such as task intervals and predictive

maintenance can make use of the time scales for development of various degradation
mechanisms, and the specification of appropriate predictive techniques listed in the
EPRI PM Basis data tables. For example, some PM task intervals on certain component
types are fairly tightly constrained by known time scales of degradation. These are not
worth the expenditure of plant resources in attempts to extend the task intervals. Other
task intervals invite extension, with potential limits that can also be determined from
the EPRI data. These data tables are to receive additional enhancement in the near
future to become even more comprehensive and accurate.

2.2 PM Audits

An informative starting point for any PM optimization is a direct audit of an existing

PM program. This can provide plant management with a means to judge how the plant
PM program compares to standard industry recommendations, and where there is most
need for improvements. Typically this can be done very inexpensively by a sampling
approach in which a vertical slice audit is performed on specific equipment types in a
small number of systems, chosen because of their diversity, because of recurring
equipment problems, or because of other suspected weakness in the PM program for
those systems. These audits can be conducted on site by one contractor in four or five
days, aided by a utility PM coordinator who has responsibility for accessing the plant
databases and for arranging interviews with plant personnel.
12
 Use of The EPRI PM Basis

The audit proceeds by listing the PM tasks for each component of the agreed types in
the systems under examination, and comparing with the EPRI PM Basis
recommendations. Where there are significant differences, component or system
engineers are interviewed to discover the reasons. Cases where an adequate technical
basis can not be discovered for the differences are written up as audit findings.

The audit report consists of a disposition of each PM task and the degree to which it is
in concordance with the EPRI PM Basis recommendations. The report is written
immediately following the audit, completing an efficient process in a minimum of time.

Tools that EPRI has developed to facilitate the audits include data forms for each
component type already loaded with the EPRI Template data. These provide for a
directed search for specific PM tasks in the plant databases and are instrumental in
completing a thorough detailed review. Interviews are conducted with system and
component engineers to confirm preliminary assignments of functional importance,
duty cycle, and service conditions, and to discover component history and the basis for
plant PM tasks and intervals.

The only barrier to a high efficiency audit is the quality of plant databases. When PM
tasks are not comprehensively contained in the databases or are distributed over
several databases the audit can be less efficient. However, with the assistance of
application guidelines which EPRI is building into an electronic database form of the
EPRI PM Basis reports, it will be possible for utilities to conduct self audits without the
assistance of a contractor.

2.3 Evaluation of the Benefit of PM Changes

Utilities do not currently have a methodology and data to enable the most important
benefits of performing a PM task to be assessed and compared to alternatives.
Currently, the benefits of PM changes are evaluated solely on the basis of preventive
maintenance cost reduction, simply from the change in the amount of PM performed,
and not at all in terms of a reduction in the number of failures. But the latter is the only
reason that PM resources are deployed at all in any industrial plant.

The EPRI PM Basis reports contain almost all the information needed to assess the
reliability benefit of performing a specific PM task at a given interval in the context of
the other PM tasks that are being performed. This information is contained in the
breakdown of failure locations, degradation mechanisms, and the times to first failure,
combined with the assignments of particular tasks that are applicable to address each
mechanism. A software tool is being prepared called Maintenance Benefit Analysis, or
MBA, that will numerically roll up this information to give simple evaluations of the
marginal benefit of a PM change.

13
Use of The EPRI PM Basis

The benefit evaluation alone will be a valuable tool when selecting PM tasks and
intervals. However, when combined with estimates of the costs of performing PM
tasks, the costs of unplanned failures, and the costs of corrective maintenance, and
other cost impacts such as radiation exposure, MBA will constitute a powerful cost-
benefit tool for maintenance improvement and O&M cost reduction. This step will
require integration of the MBA tool with other software products that EPRI is preparing
for utility cost evaluations.

2.4 Improving The Use And Integration of Predictive PM Tasks

One of the principle benefits of introducing predictive PM tasks is to lessen the need for
intrusive activities which have a high cost and which may also have a high chance of
causing additional failures. Time directed tasks such as internal inspections, scheduled
replacements of components, and overhauls might be largely eliminated in this process,
or their time intervals might be extended. There is a risk that a newly introduced
predictive capability might not be completely effective at detecting incipient failures
while there is enough lead time to plan for corrective action at a convenient time, so
that the cost of the resulting unplanned plant outages exceeds the cost savings from
performing fewer time directed tasks. This concern has been a major factor slowing the
introduction of predictive technology in nuclear power plants.

A fully informed decision on this topic would need to consider if there are any failure
mechanisms that the previous time directed task covers, that might not be addressed by
the full program of predictive tasks and other time directed tasks that remain in the
program.

The PM Basis can be used in precisely this way, reading this information directly from
the task rationale and from EPRI PM Basis Tables 3.1 and 3.2. It can also add context
and perspective by showing the compromises that are made in the original PM
program, even among the time directed tasks. Not all failure mechanisms are always
addressed in a comprehensive way, the intrusive task interval will carry a specific risk
of failing to address random failure events that occur at short times, and it is likely to
involve a high degree of risk of introducing new failures.

Additionally, the new Maintenance Benefit Analysis software tool will be able to assess
the interplay between predictive tasks that are performed frequently, but possibly with
reduced effectiveness in identifying causes of failure, compared to the more intrusive
tasks which may have been more certain to identify impending failure mechanisms but
which were performed too infrequently to be as effective as the predictive tasks.

When the PM Basis is used in this way the relative benefit and risk of the new
predictive task can be viewed in explicit relationship to the existing tasks.

14
 Use of The EPRI PM Basis

2.5 Craft Information Feedback

To sustain a credible PM improvement strategy over the long term it is absolutely

essential that the condition of the equipment, observed during maintenance, be
recorded and directed back to influence changes to the PM program. The PM Basis can
be the starting point for the development of information feedback forms to be used by
craft personnel when executing PM and CM work orders.

These forms can contain checkboxes narrowly focused on the dominant failure
locations, degradation mechanisms, and driving influences specific to the equipment
type and task at hand. Generic feedback forms are of lesser value because they are too
lengthy and detailed for maintenance personnel to use efficiently, containing too many
questions of little or no pertinence to the equipment and task being performed. The
design of condition information feedback forms and the method of electronic
information capture and retrieval from them is the subject of ongoing investigation,
and has not been carried to the point of application at the time of writing this report.

However, feedback forms for 20 component types have already been prepared using
the EPRI PM Basis reports. These forms require customizing for use at a plant by
screening to retain only the most important items, and to be tuned to the specific
hardware design at the plant. In principle, the derivation of information on equipment
condition can be an essential feedback to a Living PM Process once the problem of
electronic recording of the information is solved. EPRI has already developed an
evaluation process for the use of such information in making changes to a PM program.

2.6 Electronic Database Of The EPRI PM Basis Data

The EPRI PM Basis reports are also to be distributed as a series of computerized data
tables with associated application software on an MSAccess platform. Availability of
the electronic form of this data will launch three developments:

1. A user interface designed to facilitate utility applications such as those described

above. Included in the interface will be Help files that constitute an Applications
Handbook, containing guidance on querying the data, using the interface with
associated software products, and implementation insights from relevant utility
projects.

2. The ability of utility personnel to review and update the data and to submit their
revisions to EPRI via the Internet. Even a small number of independent utility
reviews for each component type will significantly improve confidence in the
universal applicability and accuracy of the data. EPRI personnel will have the

15
Use of The EPRI PM Basis

capability to incorporate new utility information from the reviews in updates to the
data which can be redistributed via the Internet.

3. Gradual transformation of the initial EPRI PM Basis data, simply via the above
reviews over time, into a repository of utility PM experience and data on equipment
degradation, retaining the exact format of the EPRI PM Basis data. This repository
of industry information will be extremely efficient to create and to retrieve
information from because it will not be an event-based database. The information
in the database will already be in a summary form, available for direct use through
the Applications Software. EPRI would take steps to incorporate EPIX data into this
process.

Transfer of the EPRI PM Basis report data into Access tables will be complete by the
end of 1998, and the Application Handbook Help files will be completed during 1999.

16
 Process for Developing the PM Rationale

3
PROCESS FOR DEVELOPING THE PM RATIONALE

3.1 Overview

Section 3.1 will describe the process that was followed to elicit information from plant
engineers, and to develop and describe the rationale for each PM task for a given
component type. The basic premise is that the rationale for why a PM task has a certain
content, focus, and time interval can be understood by asking which PM activities can
most effectively address each of the causes of degradation and failure for the
component. This information is well known by component engineers, system
engineers, and by maintenance engineers and technicians who are experienced in the
types of failures and deterioration that have been observed in the industry during the
performance of preventive and corrective maintenance over a long period of time. This
information can be retrieved by first discussing with them which parts of the
equipment typically degrade or fail, which mechanisms are usually responsible for the
degradation, which factors in the physical or operational environment have the most
effect in initiating the degradation or in making it more severe, and how long the
deterioration can be expected to progress before it becomes unacceptable, or results in a
failure. Subsequently, the discussion can move on to the kinds of PM techniques or
activities that have the best chance of discovering the degraded conditions, if they exist,
and which higher level PM tasks should include these activities.

When this data has been obtained and documented it can be screened in various ways
to discover the more common types of degradation and failures addressed by each task,
the tasks that are aided by other PM tasks which also address the same failure locations
and conditions, and the tasks that are most relied on because they do not have a backup
from other tasks. This analysis also identifies a logical time interval for each task that is
determined by the time scales of occurrence of the failures which are addressed.

There are three key parts to this process for each component type. The first consists of
extracting the above data from the experiences of a small number of utility plant
engineers in a workshop-like format, the second is the development of the rationale for
each task and the presentation of a summary of the whole program of such tasks in a
table called the PM Template, and the third is the addition of supplementary
information such as examples taken from nuclear power plant systems, definitions of
the component boundary and applicable duty cycle and service conditions, a discussion

17
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

of the risk to reliability of doing intrusive maintenance, the most common or dominant
failure locations and mechanisms taken from industry sources, and the availability of
design modifications that can improve reliability or decrease dependence on preventive
maintenance.

In what follows it will be observed that terms such as degradation, degradation

mechanism, deterioration, failure cause, failure mechanism, and failure type are used
more or less interchangeably to indicate the process that leads to failure. Degradation
is usually the preferred usage. The terms task basis, technical basis, and task
rationale are also used interchangeably. It has been found that no purpose is served in
this work by attempting to be more precise about the employment of these terms.

Failure modes of equipment, such as those used by NPRDS, and familiar in

Probabilistic Safety Analysis, e.g. fails closed, fails to run, fails open, etc. are not
used extensively in this work. Preventive maintenance tasks primarily address the
degradation of equipment (e.g. corrosion or a bent valve stem) and it matters little to a
PM task in which mode the equipment eventually fails. Most degradation mechanisms
can affect more than one failure mode, perhaps most or all of them as is the case of
corrosion or a bent valve stem. Although consideration of failure modes can be of
value in deciding whether certain component failures can be tolerated or not (e.g. fails
open can be functionally critical, whereas failed closed can be the fail-safe mode),
there are generally no PM tasks that are specific to fails open but not to fails closed.
Consequently, apart from a short experiment with the use of failure modes in the AOV
report (Volume 1), they have been found not to be useful in developing a PM Basis.

The PM Basis has been prepared for components which are generally quite complex
pieces of equipment. The general term adopted in these reports for the hardware at
this level of description (e.g. Medium Voltage Switchgear), is Equipment.
Subcomponents such as bearings, shafts, coils, gaskets, and stator windings, which are
the sites of specific degradation processes and failures are referred to as Failure
Locations. The term Component is used interchangeably with either of these
meanings, depending on the context.

3.2 The Expert Panel Meeting

The information required was obtained for each component type during an intensive
three to four day meeting with a small group of industry experts drawn from EPRI
member utilities. As indicated in Section 1.7, even one or two experienced engineers
were able to provide the majority of the information required when it was difficult to
assemble a larger group owing to time constraints or other emergencies. However, for
most component types, interaction between the members of a somewhat larger group
provided a wider coverage of equipment designs and manufacturers, a wider base of
industry experience, and opportunities for discussion of the more difficult areas.

18
 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

This Section gives an overview of the steps involved in the expert panel meeting. To
construct the rationale for a PM program it was found that a large amount of very
specific information is required. It was essential that the meeting of component experts
was used to maximum efficiency to provide this information in a short time. For this
reason the meetings quickly became highly structured, closely following a multi-step
process to ensure disciplined coverage of all the required aspects. The following is an
outline of the steps that were used.

STEP 1. In many cases failure cause and maintenance data from obtained applicable
EPRI NMAC guides were briefly reviewed by project personnel before the expert panel
meetings to provide input to the panel on an appropriate equipment breakdown into
component categories such as Kingsbury type bearings, or pistons and cylinders
that could be used as the hardware locations of failures and the site of specific
degradation mechanisms. This input also indicated the relative proportions of different
failure causes such as misadjusted switches, or aging of elastomers. The expert
panel always determined the final choice of hardware breakdown and the list of the
likely failure locations and causes.

STEP 2. The expert panel determined if the component type needed to be sub-divided
into logical groups by design characteristics. For example, it was decided that pumps
should be divided into a vertical pump group, a horizontal pump group, and a
positive displacement pump group because these types of pumps have enough
design and maintenance differences between them to warrant separate treatment, yet
each addresses a sufficiently generic set of equipment to enable a single treatment to be
made for each group without further subdivision. In a many cases the need for further
subdivision was dealt with on an ad hoc basis, generally by including alternative
components and expecting the user to decide which ones apply. An example would be
reciprocating compressors with oil bath air filters in relation to those with dry element
filters. Each of the various major groupings of equipment, e.g. vertical pump, was
then treated to the multistep process separately, and written up as a separate PM Basis
report.

STEP 3. The definition of the equipment boundary and the components and
subcomponents to be included when considering PM tasks, was made so that it is clear
whether auxiliary devices such as external lubrication systems, interfacing components
such as pump/driver couplings, and various control and instrumentation components
are included or excluded from the PM Basis reports.

STEP 4. The PM Template is organized so that particular duty cycles such as standby
operation versus continuous operation, and service conditions such as being exposed to
the outside environment and weather, can have an influence on the PM task intervals
or on the need for a PM task. The service conditions and duty cycles that impact PM
strategies were established at this point in the process whenever possible, although it
was sometimes necessary to revisit the definitions at a later stage. For consistency in
19
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

using the Template there was always provision for two duty cycles termed High and
Low, and two sets of service conditions termed Severe and Mild. This
adequately covered all the cases encountered, although occasionally two choices for
each were not needed. For example, it was determined that all spring actuated safety
relief valves fell into the class Low Duty Cycle, and are operated under Severe
Service Conditions.

Some components required very careful definitions of these terms, occasionally

involving an interaction between duty cycle and service conditions. For example,
motor operated valves incorporate a pressure drop consideration in the duty cycle
definition. These valves also require a separate use of the Template for task intervals
for the actuator and the valve whenever there is a significant pressure drop.

An additional consideration addressed at this time is the division of components into

two groups, those that are functionally so important that it is worth spending
considerable preventive maintenance resources to avoid failures, and those for which
only the spending of considerably lower maintenance resources can be justified. The
former are referred to as critical components, the latter as non-critical. Critical
components can be critical because of their functional importance to safety or to
electricity generation, or both (or on the basis of certain other user-defined criteria).
Generally, a comprehensive level of PM has to be developed for critical components so
that all failures are prevented.

Non-critical components require some level of preventive maintenance rather than

permitting them to fail. The PM objective is to control reliability at an appropriate
level, generally by preventing the most common types of failures.

A third group of components can be referred to as the Run-to-Failure group for

which preventive maintenance is neither functionally nor economically justifiable. The
PM programs addressed by the PM Basis project obviously do not apply to the Run-
to-Failure components. However, the critical and non-critical types are both
addressed by the PM Basis project. The definitions of critical and non-critical
components are almost always unchanged for different component types.

STEP 5. At this point it was also necessary to develop a preliminary list of PM tasks.
Without such a list there would be frequent confusion in the expert meeting as to
whether a specific PM activity would be performed on one occasion or another,
accompanied by other tasks or not. For example, inspection was often identified as a
possible means of detection of a degraded condition, meaning that if an observer cared
to look in the right place, and knew what he was looking for, it would be possible to
see the condition. To this was added a statement of the higher level PM task that
would provide the opportunity for such observations. Such a higher level statement or
PM task could be External Visual Inspection, Partial Disassembly, Partial
Refurbishment, Overhaul, Elastomer Replacement, Functional Test, or even

20
 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

Calibration, depending on the degree of disassembly required. Sometimes the

relevant PM task would depend on who would be performing the task; for example,
I&C technicians might be the only people qualified to observe a certain condition, and
they would perform the appropriate inspection during calibration.

The higher level task labels such as Refurbishment, or Functional Test are normally
referred to in the reports as PM tasks or PM strategies. Line items that might be
included in these PM tasks, such as inspect and clean filter are normally referred to
as activities. Occasionally, a single activity such as inspect and clean filter is the
main focus of the task, and practically the only thing that is done in the task. Such a
case would then be made into a higher level PM task such as Filter, Clean and
Inspect.

More information is provided in Sections 1.4 and 3.6 on the kinds of PM tasks and
activities in the reports. At this early point in the expert meeting only the main
headings for the PM tasks and a preliminary idea of the task content was required.

STEP 6. For the purpose of organizing the breakdown of the component into
convenient parts for consideration during the meeting and for reporting, the
component was often divided into major maintainable subgroups such as Actuator
and Valve for an air operated valve, or even Mechanical Components and
Electrical Components for electric motors. This was not always necessary or possible,
as in the case of check valves and horizontal pumps. It should be noted that this was
done only for convenience; on these occasions the subgroups corresponded more to
how maintenance is performed on the component, than on design features.

STEP 7. For a specific type of equipment the point of departure for consideration of
degradation processes, the timing of failures, and the choice of PM tasks was the list of
failure locations (e.g. packing and mechanical seal) for the equipment. This list was
developed by the expert panel and corresponded to the points of hardware degradation
and failure that constituted their knowledge of where failures occur, including input
from the prior review of industry sources. Each failure location was subsequently
considered in turn, with information on degradation, timing and appropriate PM tasks
documented in a tabular format. The expert panel did not include extremely rare kinds
of failures. When such an inclusion was made inadvertently, a PM task was only
assigned if it would have been performed for other reasons (i.e. to address a different
failure location).

STEP 8. For each failure location the group assigned the main degradation processes,
the factors that most influence the degradation, and the time characteristics of the
progression to failure. This information was documented in a table (Table 3.1) by the
meeting facilitators, on a large screen so that everyone could see it, discuss it, and
modify it as necessary. Hardcopies were made as the screen became filled so that all
attendees at the meeting retained a complete record of the information for reference.

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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

Sections 3.4 and 3.5 contain further information describing this process and the table
entries.

STEP 9. The table was completed by adding the discovery opportunities for each of the
degrading subcomponent failure locations. Sometimes this corresponded to observing
the degradation process in progress before the failure point is reached, as in monitoring
vibration levels. At other times it corresponded to observing deficiencies such as leaks
that require maintenance action before a functional failure occurs, and at other times it
corresponded to finding failures that have already occurred. The purpose of these
discovery opportunities was to identify the physical act (e.g. inspection) or
measurement, but not the PM task during which the action would be taken (e.g.
refurbishment), although sometimes these would coincide (e.g. vibration monitoring).

STEP 10. Following the identification of the discovery opportunities, the PM strategies
or tasks during which these opportunities would arise were added. For example,
direct thrust measurement as a discovery opportunity would be performed during
mechanical off-line test as the PM strategy for an MOV. These entries were drawn
from the preliminary list of PM tasks developed in step 5. Changes were made to the
PM list as necessary.

STEP 11. After all the hardware failure locations had been processed, members of the
expert panel completed the list of PM task contents, i.e. the set of line items
representing the scope of all actions to be taken during each PM task. This information
was drawn from their experience and also from Table 3.1 just completed, so that all the
requirements for each PM task were included. This list of task contents was not
intended to be exhaustive in the sense of including PM actions that are specific to a
particular make or model, and clearly does not correspond to a procedure, or explain
how to perform the actions. Instead, it is an outline of the generic items that should be
included to encompass all the opportunities to identify deterioration of the equipment
and to provide appropriate intervention.

STEP 12. Information had earlier been presented to the expert group members from
industry sources such as NMAC analysis of failure causes. This information often
identified the failure locations and failure mechanisms or degradation processes that
were most prevalent in the industry databases such as LERs and NPRDS. The expert
group used this information and their experience to provide a short list of the most
commonly encountered failures for the equipment being considered. This information
was used to construct the rationale for each PM task. For example, if a task was the
only task capable of addressing a certain failure mechanism, and the mechanism was
prominent among failure occurrences, it would be important to recognize that the task
fulfilled this special function, and to make observation of the failure mechanism a focal
point of the task. The most dominant failure locations and causes, combined with the
knowledge of which tasks could address them provided a means to distinguish the
most important objectives of each task from the bulk of the data provided. Further
22
 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

information on how the rationale for each task was developed can be found in Section
3.8.

STEP 13. A list of component examples was then prepared for the eight combinations
of criticality, duty cycle, and service conditions. For example, a feedwater pump motor
would be one example of a motor that was considered to be critical, to have a high duty
cycle, and to experience severe service conditions for medium voltage electric motors.
These examples are provided to give the reader a better understanding of the meaning
of the eight sets of conditions addressed by the Template and to give the expert panel
members a specific focus in constructing the Template. In many instances a given
system component may appear in more than one set of conditions. This is perhaps
confusing, but demonstrates that plant-specific factors can alter the assignments. For
example, a motor in a turbine building cooling water system could be inside the
turbine building at one plant but outside at another, or a compressor cooling water
system could operate on a closed, and hence clean, cooling water system at one plant
but on a raw water system at another. It also demonstrates the value of having eight
sets of conditions depicted on the Template, instead of a single uniform set of
recommendations being made for all condensate pumps, or for all 6.9KV switchgear.
No explanation is offered for each instance where a component appears in multiple
conditions, as it is considered reasonably obvious and of little specific importance for
the report as a whole.

STEP 14. The expert panel next developed the PM Template, having completed the list
of PM tasks and their scope, and having considered in some detail the time scales
involved in the development of failures, the most important influences on this
development, as well as examples of equipment with particular functional criticality,
duty cycles, and service conditions. This involved the assignment of time intervals to
each task appropriate for the eight sets of circumstances addressed by the Template.
The Template for medium voltage electric motors is shown in Figure 3-1. The sets of
circumstances cover all the combinations of a critical or non-critical component, with a
high or low duty cycle, operating in severe or mild service conditions. If the time
intervals are properly assigned they are a logical integration or roll-up of, 1) the factors
that were most influential in affecting failures and determining maintenance and which
were included in the definitions of the duty cycles and service conditions, 2) the
degradation mechanisms, influences, and development time scales entered in the table,
3) the prevalence of these mechanisms in failure history, and 4) the effectiveness of the
PM tasks in addressing them.

It is obvious that all these factors can not be taken into account explicitly during the
expert group meeting. Instead, the group of experts made the assignments from their
experience in their own or other plants, and on what they believe would be suitable
improvements to that experience. Subsequent analysis by project personnel reconciled
the experts experiential views with the logical basis that can be extracted from the
tabular data. It is a striking feature of the project results that these two viewpoints can
23
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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

almost always be shown to be in very good or acceptable agreement, showing that

good industry practice, represented by the PM programs depicted on the Template, has
a logical basis.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Critical Yes
X X X X
* No X X X X
Duty Cycle High X X X X
Low X X X X
Service Condition Severe X X X X
Mild X X X X
Thermography See PM Application Note 2.3.1 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M

Vibration Monitoring See PM Application Note 2.3.2 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M 6M

Oil Analysis See PM Application Note 2.3.3 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y

Electrical Tests - On-Line See PM Application Note 2.3.4 3Y 4Y 3Y 4Y 3Y 4Y 3Y 4Y

Mechanical Tests - On-Line See PM Application Note 2.3.5 1Y 2Y 1Y 2Y 1Y 2Y 1Y 2Y

Electrical Tests - Off-Line See PM Application Note 2.3.6 2Y 3Y 2Y 3Y 2Y 3Y 2Y 3Y

Mechanical Tests - Off-Line See PM Application Note 2.3.7 2Y 4Y 2Y 4Y 2Y 4Y 2Y 4Y

External Visual Inspection See PM Application Note 2.3.8 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y 1Y

Partial Disassembly and See PM Application Note 2.3.9 AR AR AR AR AR AR AR AR

Partial Refurbishment See PM Application Note 2.3.10 AR AR AR AR AR AR AR AR

Refurbishment See PM Application Note 2.3.11 10Y 15Y 10Y 15Y 10Y 20Y 10Y 20Y

Functional Tests See PM Application Note 2.3.12 AR AR AR AR AR AR AR AR

Figure 3-1
PM Template - Medium Voltage Electric Motors

STEP 15. It was necessary to revisit the Template at this point to perform a sanity
check on the cost-effectiveness of the not critical but important template columns to
verify that the proper intervals and tasks were selected when compared to those in the
critical columns. There is a tendency of the expert panel to assign similar tasks and
intervals for columns 5 to 8 of the Template as for columns 1 to 4, until they have
completed the examples (Step 13) and have an opportunity to reconsider the different
economic and/or regulatory impact of failures on these two groups of components.

STEP 16. In order to provide added focus to the PM task rationales, and an additional
checkpoint for the logical basis for the task, the expert panel was next asked to list the
main objective of each PM task in terms of the key failure locations and component
degradation processes that are most responsible for the task intervals assigned to the
template. After the meeting this information is reconciled with the tabular data. It

24
 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

usually throws light on the types of failures that are likely to be experienced if the task
interval is extended too far, and may provide insight into compensating actions that
can be taken as insurance against such failures when extending task intervals.

STEP 17. It was also necessary to elicit the expert panel members views on the risks of
doing maintenance too frequently, or too intrusively. The components vary greatly as
to the degree to which disassembly and reassembly can lead to additional problems
that are not present before the maintenance is performed. Only in the case of air
operated valves (AOVs) was it possible to complete detailed analysis of failure data
and to correlate it with the PM tasks being performed, before the expert meeting took
place. For the other component types the opinions of the expert panel were consulted
as to the kinds of failures they had found to be caused by maintenance error.

STEP 18. Some of the last items of information required from the expert panel are not
directly associated with the construction of a rationale for the PM program. They
address design improvements that are either currently available or which industry
organizations should consider developing in order to improve reliability or to decrease
the cost of preventive maintenance. Typically these are modifications which make
tasks quicker to perform, or less intrusive, or which overcome particular degradation
mechanisms.

STEP 19. Finally, the panel provided information on relevant vendor bulletins, and
EPRI, NRC, INPO, or owners group reports that had been issued in the previous two
years, and other activities such as the recent formation of industry user groups.

STEP 20. After the meeting, the project personnel analyzed all the data to investigate
the degree to which dominant failures are adequately addressed, the tasks that are
important because they are the only means available to address certain failure
mechanisms, and the mechanisms that are most responsible for the task intervals being
assigned as they are.

3.3 Failure Locations

In the PM Basis report for each component type the list of failure locations can be found
in column 1 of Table 3.1, entitled Failure Locations, Degradation Mechanisms, and PM
Strategies, as shown here in Figure 3-2 for Medium Voltage Switchgear.

The failure locations for Medium Voltage Switchgear are:

25
Failure Locations, Degradation Mechanisms, and PM Strategies
Failure Degradation Degradation Degradation Failure Timing Discovery PM Strategy
Location Mechanism Influence Progression Opportunity
Operating Lubrication . Contamination 1. Construction 1 & 2 - Trouble-free . Inspection of . Visual Inspection
failure period for perhaps 3 exposed surfaces
Mechanism 2. Structure years after random
. Detailed inspection
maintenance contamination.
. Integral periodic . Overhaul
tests performed
3. Otherwise 3. Trouble-free for up to during detailed
continuous 10 years if contamination inspections and
is continuous overhaul, including:
4. Improper breaker Close timing test
maintenance, random 4. Early failure (1-2 Minimum voltage
or systematic years) after improper test
action Trip load test
Feel of manual
operation
. Age (time not cycles) Continuous Trouble-free period for a As above As above
number of years (up to
.Temperature 10 years)
. Inactivity Even a few cycles 6 year inactivity period As above As above
significantly improves leads to failure
condition

Figure 3-2
PM Basis Table 3.1 - Medium Voltage Switchgear
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

- Operating Mechanism
- Racking Mechanism
- Main Current Components, Arc Quench, and Insulation
- Electrical Devices

It should be noted that Table 3.1 may be arranged in sections, each with a heading
denoting the major maintenance oriented division of the equipment, where this
division was used to organize the work. For example, the MOV Table 3.1 has the first
four pages headed Actuator, and the next two pages headed Valve Body
Assembly. Within the Actuator Section the failure locations are:

- Wiring (including insulation, terminal blocks, lugs)

- Motor
- Drive Train
- Switches
- Spring Pack
- Fasteners

For horizontal pumps the failure locations are:

- Impeller
- Diffusers, Volutes, and Channel Rings
- Balancing Device
- Wear Rings and Surfaces
- Shaft
- Mechanical Seal (where appropriate)
- Fixed Breakdown Bushing (where appropriate)
- Packing
- Gaskets and O-Rings
- Stuffing Box Flange to the Horizontal Joint
- External Pump Casing (Barrel and Closure Head)
- Pump/Driver Coupling (where appropriate)
- Pump/Driver Coupling (Lubricated Gear Type) (where
appropriate)
- Pump Base Plate and Foundation
- Discharge and Suction Flanges
- Bearing Seals
- Breather Caps and Sight Glass Vents
- Metering Orifice
- Connections and Piping
- Slinger Rings

27
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

- Anti-Friction Bearings
- Sleeve Bearings
- Kingsbury Type Bearings
- Pump Casing - Horizontal Split
- Bearing Heat Exchanger
- Internal Bearing Coolers
- Lube Oil System

These examples show some variation in the level at which the hardware is treated,
partly a result of the choice of failure locations being at the discretion of the expert
group, partly a result of a learning curve during the project (the Switchgear was treated
at a somewhat higher level and was completed early in the project); the examples also
reflect the size and complexity of the equipment. An extreme example of the variation
possible is the occasional inclusion of Lubrication Failure as a failure location when it
was desirable to focus attention on the ways this could occur, even though it is not itself
a hardware location. There is no obvious advantage in promoting the standardization
of the hardware breakdown between different component types because even the same
failure locations can be subject to different degradation mechanisms, influences, and
time scales for deterioration in different components. In general there is a high degree
of similarity between the failure locations for components comprising different
members of the same type (see STEP 2). For example, the failure locations for High
Voltage Electric Motor differ from those for Low Voltage Electric Motor only with
respect to components that are present in one motor but not in the other.

3.4 Degradations and Influences

In the PM Basis Report for each equipment type the list of Degradation Mechanisms
and Degradation Influences can be found in columns 2 and 3 respectively of Table
3.1, entitled Failure Locations, Degradation Mechanisms, and PM Strategies.

Degradation mechanisms are the means by which the equipment is brought to the
failure point at the specified failure location. Aspects of the environment, plant
operations, maintenance, or design that cause the initiation of degradation processes or
which can affect the rapidity with which they develop are simply referred to as
influences on the degradation. For example, the degradation mechanism of
misalignment of worm to worm gear in an MOV drive train can be initiated or
influenced by personnel error and manufacturing tolerances of individual
components. The degradation wear on valve guides is influenced by horizontal
orientation and also by chronic operation under a pressure drop in any orientation.

In Table 3.1 entries in columns 3, 4, and 5 are lined up with each other across the page
to indicate their association. Successive items in columns 4 and 5 are only entered
when they change. So the user must fill in the blank spaces with the last entry above.

28
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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

This convention prevents the table from being filled up with data, and makes it much
easier to read. A partial list of these degradation mechanisms and influences is
reproduced below to illustrate their range and applicability. In contrast, the
degradations and influences below are simply listed in two columns and are not
associated with each other in a one-to-one relationship.

Degradation Influences

Insulation breakdown High temperature

Misadjusted Moisture ingress
Pinched insulation Personnel error
Improper crimping Number of cycles
Change of spring constant Cleanliness of process medium
Crud buildup on seat Debris
Damaged seat Flow conditions of process medium
Sliding wear Radiation
Cracking Age
Sticking Clogged/crushed lines
Low oil level Leaking sight glass
Incorrect lubricant Clogged air filter
Low oil flow Aging of pump
Clogged water cooling ports Silt accumulation
Failed gasket Improper torquing
Stuck Wear
Wear Run time
Inadequate clearances Misalignment
Failed sensor Vibration
Loose connections Contamination
Plugged orifices Moisture from gasket failure

The above items are only a very small fraction of the total number of degradation
mechanisms and influences encountered. The list shows that some of the degradations
are themselves subcomponent failures (e.g. failed sensor, failed gasket), while often
they are an association of hardware and a mechanism, such as plugged orifices, or
damaged valve seat. The hardware in such cases is usually a piece-part of the failure
location as in burnt contacts for the degradation mechanism in pressure switches on a
rotary screw compressor. In that case the influence on the degradation could be
misalignment of contacts or contamination . Similarly, what appears as a degradation
in one place can appear as an influence in another as in wear being the influence
which causes sticking as the degradation in a compressor unloader valve, but wear as
the degradation mechanism for bearings, caused by a variety of influences such as
lubrication failure, misalignment, or manufacturing defect.

29
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

The point of the above discussion is to illustrate the fact that a division of the failure
process into hardware failure location, degradation process, and influences on the
degradation is obliged to defy prescriptiveness and to invalidate tight definitions if it is
going to be reasonably realistic and efficient. For the purpose of understanding what a
PM task is trying to achieve this latitude in definitions does not have any serious
consequences. It is more important to have a practical description of the process that
component experts feel comfortable with, and which above all, facilitates the extraction
of information from their experience in an expeditious manner.

To enhance the description, additional information is sometimes appended as a list to

the degradation mechanism as in,

Leakage, (for Gasket and O-Ring failure as failure location)

- Erosion,
- Corrosion,
- Inappropriate Material

and to the influences as in,

- Installation Error, (an influence for Wear of a pump/driver coupling)

- Shaft Fit
- Gap Setting
- Key Sizing

The objective of describing the degradation mechanisms and the influences on them is
to alert the user to conditions which might be particularly applicable in his plant. For
example, when moisture ingress and contamination are known drivers of insulation
breakdown, and the equipment is in a damp and dirty location, this could be
recognized as a vulnerability. The vulnerability might be a consideration if a task
interval is being extended. The degradation mechanisms and influences also provide
information that might be significant for improving craft training by showing what
most to look for. They could also be an indication of the value of adequate procedures
and training, especially in cases where equipment is subject to many kinds of personnel
error across a wide range of failure locations. A particularly high or low potential for
personnel error, manufacturing defects, or installation errors might also correlate with
the risk of doing maintenance and affect decisions to reduce the amount of intrusive
maintenance being performed in favor of condition monitoring. The description is also
a starting point for designing information feedback processes from the crafts in a living
program, because in combination with history at the plant it can indicate the particular
aspects to look for when performing PM tasks.

30
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

3.5 Time Information for Degradation and Failure

The type of timing information that is useful is that which may have a bearing on the
task intervals. It has been found to be more productive to ask first for the time
characteristics of the degradation, and then for how this affects the failure times or the
point at which the condition would become unacceptable. The Degradation
Progression in column 4 of Table 3.1 in each PM Basis Report gives an idea of whether
the degradation process is present most of the time (Continuous), or whether it
would not normally be present but might exist or initiate randomly. Continuous or
Random are the most common entries in column 4 of the table.

The Failure Time Distribution in column 5 of Table 3.1 refers to the expected
distribution of failure times to which the degradation leads. Two general possibilities
are recognized. One is typical of a predictable pattern of wearout, where a period of
time is expected to elapse after a new or refurbished item is placed in service, before
any failures appear. This is referred to in column 5 as Expect a failure-free period ....,
or words to that effect. The failure-free period is then stated in months or years, or as a
range of these values. When a failure-free period is expected it is acknowledged that
actual failure times will be random, but none are expected to occur before the stated
time.

The other situation envisaged is where there is no expectation of a failure-free period so

that failures could occur soon after the equipment is placed in service. In this case it is
supposed that the chance of a failure in any given time period is more or less the same
whether or not the equipment has been in service a short time or a long time. This is
referred to in column 5 as Random. Even if the failures can occur without a failure-
free period, there is still an important difference between equipment that is highly
likely to fail in a short time compared to equipment whose probability of failure is
spread out over a much longer time. For example, this could simply be the difference
between equipment with a mean time between failures of 5 years rather than 15 years.
It is not usually possible to be precise about the mean time to failure because accurate
statistics are not available for specific failure locations, degradation mechanisms and
influences. However, component and maintenance engineers often have a general
sense of the time scale on which they would expect to see the first few failures from
various causes, and so this time scale is entered to provide an approximate guide to
task intervals. Column 5 therefore frequently has entries such as Random on a scale of
3 years, meaning that failures could occur at any time but the chance of having had a
failure only becomes appreciable after 3 years. The intention is to indicate failure time
characteristics as depicted in Figure 3-3 of this report.

These statements are applied as specifically as the expert members experience allows.
For example, in the Low Voltage Electric Motor Report for Stator Windings as the
failure location and Insulation Degradation as the degradation mechanism, eleven
different influences are listed. Vibration and Age appear as Continuous types of
31
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

degradation influence with Failure free for >6 years for vibration and Failure free
for <40 years for age. Heat above rated is a continuous influence for which a failure
free period was suspected, but because of a significant dependence on the amount of
heat, only a general indication years could be given for the failure free period. Other
influences such as Excessive starts (meaning excessive in a short interval), and
Foreign Material were thought to be so random that no guidance beyond the word
Random could be given for the failure time. Other instances are Random but rapid
after onset, Random, but in a few months, Random, the greater the 'T the shorter
the life.

A Continuous degradation progression may be followed by an expression of a failure

free period, or by a statement of a random distribution of failure times. The latter case
occurs when the degradation progresses so erratically that the extent of it would be
extremely unpredictable even if it were known to be present. Age or Aging as a
degradation or influence is always Continuous, and usually results in a specific or
general failure free period, i.e. 5 years, or at least years. Corrosion processes,
however, typically are stated as Continuous influences but lead to Random failure
times because of the unpredictability of the process. Various types of personnel error
and manufacturing and installation errors are simply entered as Random in columns
4 and 5, sometimes with a time scale attached for the failure times if the effect of failure
is delayed from the time of the error.

3.6 Discovery Opportunities and PM Strategies

The second to last column in Table 3.1 of each PM Basis report is used to denote the
opportunities for detecting the degradation or failure, but not usually to identify the
exact mechanism or even the exact failure location. The last column shows the actual
choice of PM tasks in which a subset of the discovery possibilities is exercised. The
discovery opportunities are only recorded if they represent reasonably cost-effective
and reasonably applicable possibilities for intervention. Even then, not every
opportunity which may be technically appropriate and logically possible is included as,
or within, a practical and cost-effective PM task, because the choice depends on the
other tasks which are performed, as well as on the degree of cost-effectiveness and
technical applicability that is appropriate. It should also be remembered that PM tasks
are intended to prevent failures, so that an apparent PM task, e.g. internal inspection,
which may be the occasion simply to repair a failure, e.g. a failed damper actuator,
would then be a corrective maintenance activity and is not included as a PM Strategy
for the damper actuator. This distinction was difficult to preserve in practice, mainly
because PM tasks usually consist of a collection of different actions. A further
convention was applied so that a succession of escalating PM tasks (usually escalating

32
 High Constant Failure Rate - Events are random on a scale of ~2.5 years

Random
Failure
Events

5 10

Failure
Rate

Lower constant failure rate - Events are random on a scale of ~6 years

5 10

Expect to be failure free for 6 years Wearout

0 5 10

Time in Service (Years)

Figure 3-3
Failure Time Characteristics Taken Into Account by the PM Basis
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

in intrusiveness and with increasing interval), which each have the ability to address a
certain failure mechanism, is truncated after the first one or two entries. Thus, when
the discovery opportunity inspection could detect the condition during operator
rounds, and also in an external visual inspection, in an internal inspection, and in a
refurbishment, only the operator rounds and the external visual inspection would be
entered in the PM Strategy column.

A partial list of the discovery opportunities follows. Each entry represents the
observation, or measurement, or test of the item shown:

Discovery Opportunities

Oil analysis
Oil level and color
Oil temperature
Bearing temperature
Vibration analysis
Motor current
Insulation resistance
Winding resistance
Alignment check
Inspection
Chemistry sampling
Pressure drop
Flow
Eddy current testing
Thermography
Single phase rotor test
On-Line current signature analysis
Audible noise
Diagnostic scans
Leak rate test
Reverse flow test
Radiography
Acoustic monitoring
Timed stroke test
Minimum voltage test
Trip load test
Feel of manual operation
Power factor loss test
Sounding
Determine spring constant
Manual operation
Replace lubricant
34
 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

'T trend
Pressure test
Water color in condensate traps
Bench test
Calibration
NDE inspection

Entries in the final two columns, i.e. Discovery Opportunity and PM Strategy,
represent simple lists and do not correspond to each other by line item across the page.
Discovery opportunities may be translated into more than one potential PM task, as in
the case of Inspection which could appear as External Visual Inspection, or
Refurbishment or some other opportunity to carry out the required inspection, as
described in STEP 5 of Section 3.2. In other cases discovery opportunities may not be
taken advantage of, and would not appear as any kind of PM tasks. Such a case is the
observation of coil discoloration, thermography, and coil impedance, which provide
opportunities to detect insulation breakdown in coils of solenoid valves. None of these
were recommended as PM tasks because of overall cost-effectiveness considerations.
The only discovery opportunity to appear as a PM task in this case was functional
testing. The functional test was also specified more clearly in the PM Strategy column
as a simple operability test. The nature of functional tests is usually indicated more
specifically in the PM Strategy column. It should be noted that Improper Operation
could be entered as a discovery opportunity, but since it is not a PM task it would not
appear in the PM Strategy column.

In a few rare cases none of the discovery opportunities are used as part of the PM
program. These are denoted by the words No task in the PM Strategy column, and
indicate run-to-failure for that particular location/degradation/influence combination.
An example is where there is no inspection of an MOV to detect a cracked valve stem,
unless this happens to be visible during other tasks. Such a case indicates a rare
mechanism that probably should not have been included in the table.

Some of the entries may represent actions to be taken on another piece of equipment,
e.g. the measurement of motor current to indicate a number of problems in pump
bearings. Although such items would appear in Table 3.1, they would be labeled as
applying to the other equipment in the Discovery Opportunity and PM Strategy
columns. These tasks could be included in Table 3.2 which summarizes the failure
locations covered by each PM task, and they receive separate treatment in the text
describing the PM task rationale, but they are not included as PM tasks for the subject
equipment on the Template.

Lubrication tasks are not normally referenced as PM tasks when they are part of a plant
lubrication program unless there is a specific PM task devoted to it. Consequently,
routine filling up of oil reservoirs does not appear as a PM task, although the
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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

observation of oil level, color, and leaks appear frequently as discovery opportunities
and are addressed by Operator Rounds as the PM Strategy.

Observations made during operator rounds, and parameters that are routinely
monitored in the control room or by the plant computer are not described by a specific
task on the PM Template, but they appear in Table 3.1 and may receive separate
treatment in the text describing the PM task rationale. This information can play a vital
role in the PM program for a component. Utilities should therefore use all relevant
data from these and other sources, such as parameter values from permanently
installed equipment instrumentation, to support maintenance decisions. The
component reports frequently contain a PM task titled Operator Rounds. It should be
realized that the way these inspections are organized may differ from plant to plant so
that system engineer walkdowns and other similar discovery activities are
encompassed by this definition of Operator Rounds.

A partial list of the PM tasks which appear in the PM Strategy column of Table 3.1 is
reproduced below:

Condition Monitoring:

Diagnostic Tests
Diagnostics - Electrical Force
Diagnostics - Direct Force
Mechanical Tests On-Line
Mechanical Tests Off-Line
Electrical Tests On-Line
Electrical Tests Off-Line
Thermography
Vibration Monitoring
Oil Analysis
Radiography
Performance and Bearing Temperature Trending
Calibration

Time-Directed:

Operator Rounds
External Visual Inspection
General Visual - Off-Line
General Visual - On-Line
Internal Inspection
Detailed Inspection
Detailed Inspect/Clean/Lubricate

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 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

Partial Internal Inspection

Coupling Inspection
Filter - Change, Clean, and Inspect
Nozzle NDE Inspection
Slip Ring and Brush Inspection
Packing Inspection and Adjustment
Total Closure Valve Lubrication
Partial Disassembly
Partial Refurbishment
Refurbishment
Overhaul
Elastomer Replacement
Packing Replacement

Failure Finding:

Functional Test
Performance Test

The PM task names have been assigned as recommended by the expert panel to closely
match conventional usage for each component type, although the names also vary from
one plant to another. This results in a variety of names for similar tasks on different
component types, particularly for inspections and partial teardowns. Most of the time
each PM task is described by a task content list in Section 2.3 of each PM Basis report.
Where this is not done it is because the content is very focused and restricted, as in
vibration analysis and oil analysis.

Finally, it should be clear that the extraction of information from the expert panel, and
its classification into the entries of Table 3.1 involved many judgment calls. It was
constantly found that the nuances of why the entries are made in a certain way, or are
often not made at all, could not be captured in the body of the table, nor in the text, in a
compact way within the resources of this project. However, the material was originally
discussed extensively by the expert panel, checked by two contractors independently of
each other, and was subsequently reviewed by the members of the expert panel.
Omissions and inconsistencies undoubtedly remain, but it is not a straightforward task
to detect them given the subtle and unstated reasoning that underlies many of the
entries.

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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

3.7 The PM Template

Each PM Basis report includes a PM Template in Section 2.2. The Template

summarizes the program of tasks for the equipment type by presenting the name of
each PM task on successive rows of a table. Adjacent is a reference to the section of text
where the rationale for the task is described. Columns labeled 1 through 8 select one of
the eight sets of conditions that correspond to the combined choices of critical or non-
critical equipment, high or low duty cycle, and severe or mild service conditions. Time
intervals for the performance of each task are entered at the intersections of the task
rows and columns 1 through 8. A sample Template is shown in Figure 3-1 of this
report.

When NR (Not Recommended) appears in the Template it indicates that the expert
panel recommended the task not be applied for the indicated conditions. This was
always done on a basis of cost effectiveness. When AR (As Required) appears it
means either, 1) that normally the task would not be performed at a regular interval but
only in response to a trigger from another task or observation, or 2) the task would be
performed only in response to a regulation. Variations in these regulatory
requirements suggested that definite intervals should not be entered in the Template
for tasks normally covered by regulations.

For some components it was thought that there could be no instances where the
combination of criticality, duty cycle, and service condition corresponding to one or
more columns in the Template could arise. In these cases, the relevant columns were
shaded gray and no task interval entries were made. In other cases, task intervals have
been shown on the Template even when no examples are provided in Section 2.4 of the
component report because the expert panel members believed that some plants might
nevertheless have equipment experiencing those conditions.

It is essential that the PM Templates should not be used without the accompanying
material in Section 2 of the PM Basis Report, and preferably without being separated
from the report as a whole. This is because the rest of Section 2 contains information
necessary for proper understanding of the Template and its appropriate usage.

The Template shows a program of PM tasks and task intervals that the expert panel
believes represents a technically sound and moderately conservative position. The task
rationale, explained in Section 2.3 of each PM Basis report, provides a technical basis
that demonstrates the coverage that each task provides for the degradation mechanisms
identified in Table 3.1, and shows which of them is most responsible for the timing of
the task. The program displayed in the Template is therefore a technically defensible
PM program, but it may not be the optimum for a particular plant. Each plant should
base its PM program on appropriate vendor recommendations, and on its own history
of preventive and corrective maintenance. For a plant that already has a PM program
that is based on its own history, the Template can serve as a baseline for comparison,
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 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

and the rationale section will probably indicate why their program is appropriate, or if
it is not appropriate in some aspects. For a plant that does not have an extensive
operating history with a particular component type, or for a plant that does not have
confidence in its historical data, or does not have the current resources to develop
information from its historical data, the Template can be used in concert with
appropriate vendor recommendations directly as a default program, with gradual
changes anticipated as information is fed back in the future from a living program.

The task intervals are shown on the Template in years or months. There is normally a
level of uncertainty associated with these values that provides for some flexibility in
scheduling tasks. The uncertainty has its origin in fundamental uncertainty in the data
on the failure times and their statistical characteristics, and in the practical
requirements of scheduling tasks at a refueling outage when they require off-line access
to the equipment. When a task could only be done at a refueling outage, a 2 year
operating cycle was normally assumed. However, some of the interval assignments
were made to coincide with what the expert panel members believed were the correct
intervals regardless of the length of an operating cycle. For example, Replacement of
Elastomers was recommended at 5 years for critical solenoid valves in severe service
conditions. This could be scheduled at 4.5 or 6 years for an 18 month cycle, or at 4 or 6
years for a 24 month cycle. Obviously, plant experience will dictate the choice among
these options. However, in general, an increase of 25% in the stated intervals, up to a
maximum of 2 years was thought not to introduce a significant chance of failures in the
absence of historical evidence to the contrary. This flexibility also provides the
required latitude for exploring the effects of increases in the intervals. It was usually
thought that interval extension could proceed in steps of 25% of the existing intervals at
a plant, up to a maximum change of 2 years, providing equipment condition had
invariably been good at the existing intervals.

Template Notes are provided as Section 2.2 of each report, immediately following the
Template. The purpose of the notes is to place a few of the more important
qualifications regarding interpretation of the Template as close to it as possible to guard
against inappropriate usage. These notes address topics such as the advisability of
having a technical basis if deviating significantly from the stated intervals, the need to
consider the plant-specific service conditions, the importance of post-maintenance
testing which is not addressed by the Template, the need to follow applicable
regulations if their requirements differ from Template recommendations, and
occasionally other items such as the way in which operator rounds and continuous
monitoring of parameters have been addressed.

In many of the PM Basis Templates tasks are arranged according to the type of PM task.
The three types of task are described below.

The Condition Monitoring type of preventive maintenance task determines the current
condition of the equipment; that is, it discovers whether the condition of the equipment
39
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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

has changed, and by how much, and it may attempt to determine if the equipment can be
expected to operate successfully until the next opportunity to take corrective action.
Therefore the primary purpose of a Condition Monitoring task is to measure the
progression towards failure so that corrective action can be planned to take place in the
future or can be initiated at once.4 Condition Monitoring tasks are comprised of tasks
that measure significant parameters such as the direct thrust of an MOV drive train, or
the temperature of a bearing. Whether a parameter is measured occasionally, or is
continuously recorded or trended, does not change its designation as a Condition
Monitoring activity.

When a Condition Monitoring task has the capability to support the decisions on how
long an equipment can continue to provide its function before corrective action
becomes necessary, it is commonly referred to as a predictive task. Examples of this
subset of Condition Monitoring tasks are vibration analysis, and particulate analysis
associated with oil sampling. Condition Monitoring has the specific purpose of looking
at individual equipment and making decisions on their condition and the
appropriateness of continued operation. When considering PM tasks, Condition
Monitoring tasks are the first option in the task selection hierarchy, because they are the
most cost-effective and cause the least maintenance induced equipment failures. If no
Condition Monitoring task exists, or is known not to be sufficiently effective in
preventing equipment failure, a Time Directed task is the next task type to be
considered.

Time Directed tasks are those tasks scheduled and performed strictly on a calendar,
counter, or cycle basis regardless of whether the component needs it or not. The
primary purpose of the Time Directed task is the prevention of known failure
mechanisms and their failure causes, or the scheduled replacement of the component
before it fails.4 When Time Directed tasks are employed it is assumed that the time to
first failure of the equipment population is known or can be reasonably estimated from
maintenance experience. Overhaul is often a Time Directed preventive maintenance
task; other examples are: filter replacements, replacement of elastomers known to have
a finite life, external visual inspections, internal inspection, partial overhaul, and the
complete replacement of the component.

When a task is not scheduled but is performed only on condition that condition
monitoring has revealed an incipient failure, the task may be called an On Condition
task. Condition Monitoring tasks and On Condition tasks may also be referred to,
individually and collectively, as Condition Directed tasks.

When neither a Condition Monitoring nor a Time Directed task can be recommended,
the third task type, Failure Finding, is the final line of defense to avoid a Run-To-
Failure condition. Traditionally, the primary purpose of a Failure Finding task is to
identify a failed condition so that corrective maintenance can be initiated.4 Surveillance
testing of standby equipment is almost always a Failure Finding task, although ASME
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 Process for Developing The PM Rationale

Section IX also includes additional activities for collecting and trending performance
and condition monitoring data, such as vibration, bearing temperature, stroke times,
and leakage rates.

3.8 The PM Task Basis and Content

Table 3.1 entitled Failure Locations, Degradation Mechanisms, and PM Strategies in

each PM Basis report documents the raw data obtained from the expert panel. This
data is transformed into a description and explanation of the main objectives of each
task, how it interacts with other tasks, and why it is scheduled at the stated time
intervals. This rationale for each PM task is presented in Section 2.3 of each report
under the heading PM Application Notes because it contains a good deal more
information than just the rationale for the task. A major part of the additional
information is a list of the actions that should be included in the performance of the
task.

Table 3.2 entitled PM Tasks and Their Degradation Mechanisms was introduced into
the PM Basis reports part way through the project to provide a more convenient
summary of a subset of the information in Table 3.1. Table 3.2 omits the influence,
timing, and discovery opportunity information and focuses on the PM tasks themselves
and which failure locations and mechanisms they address. Table 3.2, of which an
example is shown in Figure 3-4 of this report, enables the user to see at a glance the
following three types of information:

1. The set of failure locations and mechanisms addressed by each task.

2. The set of tasks that address each failure location and mechanism.

3. Whether a task is accompanied by other tasks to address a particular failure

location and mechanism.

In Section 2.3 of the PM Basis report the description of a PM task rationale is specific to
each PM task individually, and is divided into three sections with italicized
subheadings, Failure Locations and Causes, Progression of Degradation to Failure, and
Fault Discovery and Intervention.

Failure Locations and Causes:

41
Stator:
Electrical External Brush Refurbishment
PM Task Off-Line Visual Maintenance
Inspection
Interval 3-4Y 1-2Y 3M AR
Time of Failure Location /
Degradation
Failure free for < 40 years Insulation breakdown X
of laminations
Random Defective / damaged X
laminations
Random Contaminated X X
laminations
Random - many years Winding insulation X X X
degradation
Random - many years Loose blocking & X X
bracing
Random - years Other stator winding X
failures

Figure 3-4
Table 3.2 - Low Voltage Electric Motors
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Process for Developing The PM Rationale

This section states the failure locations and degradation mechanisms that the task is
designed to deal with, generally with the most commonly encountered situations
described first. This section provides an overview of the main focus of the task.

Progression of Degradation to Failure:

This section summarizes the information on times of occurrence of the dominant

failures. It shows whether the failures should be expected to be predominantly random
in nature and indicates the time scale over which the chance of a failure should become
appreciable, or whether a wearout behavior is anticipated, and the relevant time period
that is expected to be free of failures. It must be emphasized that this is a synthesis of
many contributing processes over all the failure locations addressed by the task. In
combination with Table 3.1, this section also shows which of the failure locations and
mechanisms is most likely to cause trouble if the interval is extended too far. This
means that the Template interval is limited by these considerations.

Fault Discovery and Intervention:

This section explains remaining aspects of the choice of one task over another, the
interaction among tasks and the reconciliation of the Template interval for the task with
the independent analysis of the previous section. The rationale provided in these
sections concentrates on the Template tasks and intervals recommended for the
functionally critical components, although comments are sometimes added that are
specific to the non-critical components. Despite the uncertainties in the data, the result
was almost always a clear validation of the judgment of the expert panel in the limiting
intervals that they assigned to the task on the Template. This result is a major
validation of industry PM assumptions and programs. In the few instances when a
discrepancy has arisen it has been resolved by subsequent discussion with panel
members.

The process by which the PM rationale was derived from data in Table 3.1 became
more or less proceduralized into a 10 step process as a result of performing the analysis
in a relatively ad hoc manner for the first few PM Basis reports. A description of the 10
steps follows. The first 9 steps were followed for each PM task in turn, the final step
being to derive Table 3.2 for all tasks together.

STEP 1. List all the failure locations and mechanisms addressed by the task. This was
best done as a list of combined statements such as Leak-by of pressure switches in
column 1 of a new table. Cases served by the same set of PM tasks and with the same
failure timing can be grouped together if it is convenient.

STEP 2. For each item of the above list answer the question Is the expected timing of
this failure mechanism a limiting factor on the range of intervals for this task as stated
in the Template? Each answer should be Yes or No.

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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

STEP 3. For each item of the above list answer the question Is this a dominant failure
mechanism (i.e. one of the two or three most commonly occurring) by comparison with
NPRDS, LER, or NMAC analysis, or expert panel input? Each answer should be Yes
or No.

STEP 4. For each item of the above list answer the question Is this task assisted in
detecting the failure mechanism by at least one other applicable and cost-effective PM
task? Each answer should be Yes or No.

STEP 5. For each item of the above list assign a rank 1, 2, or 3 by comparing the
answers of Steps 2 and 3:

Time limiting and dominant = Rank 1

Time limiting or dominant (not both) = Rank 2
Neither time limiting nor dominant = Rank 3

STEP 6. For each item of the above list assign a rank 1, 2, 3, or 4 by comparing the
answers of Steps 3 and 4:

Dominant and no backup = Rank 1

Dominant but with backup = Rank 2
Not dominant but with no backup = Rank 3
Not dominant and with backup = Rank 4

STEP 7. For each item of the above list multiply the two ranks to produce a combined
rank in the range 1 to 12. This process gives considerable weight to items that are
commonly occurring.

STEP 8. Select items with a combined rank in the range 1 to 4 for specific discussion,
detailing whether they are dominant, time limiting, or have a high reliance on the task.
Collectively describe items with ranks 6 to 12, specifically mentioning rank 6 items if
they are time limiting or dominant (rank 2 in Step 5).

STEP 9. Highlight special cases such as rank 1 items, or As Required tasks that are
done only as corrective or on-condition maintenance but where there exist degradations
or failure mechanisms that can not be observed by any other task.

STEP 10. Prepare Table 3.2 for all tasks. For large and complex equipment it is a
benefit to prepare this table in a database or spreadsheet format before performing the
other steps so that data filtering can be employed to facilitate answering the above
questions.

At the end of this process the most significant and limiting aspects of the content and
timing of each task have become clear. Without a similar screening process the

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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

manipulation of the hundreds of entries in Table 3.1 is a formidable task. Using the
screening process the task can be completed expeditiously with an assurance of a
reasonable level of completeness.

This screening process can be adapted for use in other situations whenever it is
necessary to focus attention on the most important of the large number of items in
Table 3.1.

3.9 Duty Cycles

Duty cycle is used in this work to provide an opportunity for PM requirements to

depend on the degree of thermal and mechanical transient stresses arising from
starting, stopping, and cycling, and to depend on high temperatures, vibration, or wear
of sliding surfaces encountered in continuous operation, and the relocation and
separation of lubricants, and other effects, that may result from prolonged inactivity.
These are all aspects of how much the equipment is used while it is in service, and how
much degradation results from the different degrees of use. It was found that a simple
binary choice of a High or Low duty cycle provides sufficient flexibility to describe the
effects of duty cycle on PM tasks and intervals. High and Low duty cycles are not
necessarily synonymous with continuous operation and standby operation respectively,
although sometimes it is indeed as simple as that, e.g. for electric motors.

Equipment that is alternated between periods in standby and periods of continuous

running, such as pumps and motors, are likely to be treated as high duty cycle because
they are still operated continuously for an appreciable fraction of the time. However,
continuous operation does not always imply there should be PM differences depending
on the amount of usage. When the equipment is specifically designed for continuous
duty, as in the case of most reciprocating compressors and rotary screw compressors, a
more meaningful way to differentiate the maintenance effects of high and low duty
cycles should include consideration of the degree of loading of the equipment when it
is operating (partial loading equates to high duty cycle). Compressors also are
differentiated in duty cycle according to whether they experience more than 1
start/stop cycle per hour. In addition, the non-lubricated types of reciprocating
compressor also include consideration of the number of hours of continuous service per
day.

Duty cycle for check valves included the degree of oscillation under flow conditions as
well as the number of check cycles per year; the MOV definition had a dependence on
the number of cycles per year but the threshold number was dependent on the pressure
drop across the valve, and also on the type of valve body, because gate valves with a
pressure drop wear faster than globe valves in the same conditions. The duty cycle
definition for AOVs simply equated control functions (i.e. modulating) with high duty
cycle, and isolation functions with low duty cycle.

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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

Medium and Low Voltage Switchgear is not designed for a large number of operations
or cycles without maintenance, and many of these components are scarcely operated at
all; therefore a single threshold value of 200 cycles per year was used as the threshold
between high and low duty cycles. Motor Control Centers (MCCs), in contrast, are not
ever likely to challenge their design capabilities in terms of numbers of operations in
nuclear power plants so that all MCCs were considered to have the same duty cycle (set
as low, although whether high or low is of no interest). Pressure relief valves were also
considered to be homogeneous in duty cycle (also low), since any operations at all
represent a severe challenge to continued operation for a Safety Relief Valve, and the
number of operations of Power Operated Relief Valves before maintenance is required
is relatively low.

These examples illustrate that the definition of duty cycle for the purpose of
differentiating between levels of preventive maintenance is extremely component-
specific and needs to be approached with great care. It also demonstrates that there is a
belief in the industry that the degree of usage of a component, however it is defined,
may dictate the level of maintenance and might imply a dependence of reliability on
duty cycle. In spite of this, about half of the component types covered had no
differences at all between high and low duty cycles in the tasks and intervals
recommended, even though the differentiation of the duty cycles themselves had been
treated very carefully by the expert panel, as discussed above. This might indicate that
it is impractical in many cases to adjust maintenance to compensate for suspected duty
cycle effects.

3.10 Service Conditions

Service conditions are used in the PM Basis to provide an opportunity for PM

requirements to depend on a variety of process, environmental, and even design
variables that appear to influence degradation rates, and which could therefore require
recommended maintenance to be modified according to these conditions. Once again a
binary choice was introduced between severe and mild service conditions. Overall,
there tends to be a more or less standard set of severe service conditions, with mild
conditions being the absence of the severe factors. Different equipment types may also
have the severe conditions somewhat modified depending on the equipment.

Severe service conditions for Medium Voltage Switchgear are typical of those
representing a general sensitivity to humidity, heat, vibration, and contamination. The
definitions in this case are:

Severe: High or excessive humidity, excessive temperatures (high or low) or

temperature variations, excessive environmental conditions (e.g. salt, corrosive
materials, high radiation, spray, steam), high vibration.

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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

Mild: Clean area (not necessarily air conditioned), temperatures within OEM
specifications, normal environmental conditions.

In these definitions excessive denotes a chronic exposure to conditions which exceed

the original equipment manufacturers recommendations. Often this can mean the
difference between equipment located outside a building, exposed to the effects of
weather and the local atmosphere, in relation to equipment located inside a building,
whether or not it is a temperature controlled or air conditioned area. Because the
damage from severe conditions is normally cumulative, a few episodes of exposure
may also be sufficient to qualify for severe conditions, such as exposure to dust and dirt
during construction or cleaning.

Equipment exposed to an internal process environment, such as valves, should also

have the internal environment considered. In some instances, such as check valves, the
internal environment is by far the dominant consideration, and includes design aspects
that are important. These may partially duplicate factors more explicitly covered by
the duty cycle definition, as the check valve case demonstrates. The duty cycle for
check valves included the number of check cycles per year and the degree of oscillation
in flow conditions:

Check Valve - Severe: One or more of the following conditions apply: flow conditions
below maximum; subject to rapid opening or closing from the flow condition; installed
in a non-recommended orientation; <10 pipe diameters from valve, pump, or pipe
bend; turbulent or high velocity flow; corrosive fluids; debris-laden fluid.

Motor Operated Valves included being cycled less than once per year as a qualification
for severe service conditions. Electric Motors included high speed (>3600 rpm) as a
reason to be considered as operating in severe service conditions because of the higher
levels of vibration that tend to accompany high speed rotation. Pumps included
consideration of speed, operation off the Best Efficiency Point, frequent starts and
stops, and extended operation at minimum flow conditions. These examples show that
it was sometimes necessary to include duty cycle or design aspects in statements about
service conditions.

A reasonable level of consistency was aimed at but the definitions were only intended
to provide guidance on the likely sensitivity of the task intervals to a broad range of
considerations. Many plant-specific factors will come into play when adapting the
Template intervals to a particular application. The definitions of criticality, duty cycle,
and service conditions, and the variation of recommended intervals across the columns
in the Template, provide a reasonably good picture of how significant the expert panel
members thought the various effects should be.

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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

3.11 Maintenance Risk

The term maintenance risk is used here to represent effects that accompany preventive
maintenance that tend to increase failure rates rather than to decrease them. If PM
tasks are not performed correctly, the wrong parts are used, or the equipment is not
properly adjusted and restored to operation after maintenance, this is a fairly direct
way in which shortcomings in human factors can reverse the potential benefit of the
task. Poor training, inadequate procedures and facilities, and poor supervision and
management can be responsible. However, even when these factors are not present
there remains a finite probability of human error. There is also the chance that the PM
task contains sub-optimal practices such as over greasing, or subjecting electrical
insulation to potential breakdown by using high voltage tests. The act of removing
switch covers, terminal blocks, lugs, and fasteners creates additional fatigue and
mechanical stresses that can lead to deformation, leaks, and broken subcomponents.

The overall probability of maintenance error can be expected to be approximately

proportional to the amount of maintenance performed. It would also seem likely that
the more disassembly and re-assembly that is required to perform a task, and the more
complex the restoration of the equipment in terms of adjustment, set up, and
realignment, the more opportunities there will be for errors to arise.

The risk of maintenance may therefore be high or low depending on the equipment.
For example, the expert panel members had the opinion that electric motors should not
present significant maintenance risk because, other than alignment of the rotor on the
magnetic and mechanical center, there are few other opportunities for serious errors.
Switchgear and air operated valves represent the other end of the spectrum, with
multiple ways in which intrusive PM tasks can cause equipment reliability to be worse
than before the tasks are performed. The point was demonstrated during the early part
of this project when utility data from nuclear power plants on AOV reliability was
correlated with the PM tasks being performed on them. A large and pervasive negative
correlation was discovered between the frequency of intrusive preventive maintenance
(i.e. internal inspections, parts replacement, and overhauls) and the reliability of the
valves.

To provide further perspective on the importance of maintenance risk it should be

realized that the probability of an implementation error can be as high as 5% to 10% for
some activities, and some equipment types have multiple items of this critical nature in
a given PM task. Such numbers could thus lead to a probability of failure, from
maintenance causes alone, of greater than 10%. This is a potentially large increase in
the probability of subsequently failing to perform its function, because target levels of
reliability in the nuclear power industry are usually demanding (i.e. a few percent or
even less). Post maintenance testing is only likely to reveal immediately lethal errors,
not those that manifest themselves after a short time in service. Furthermore, there may
be an amplification factor that operates because a PM task is often added as a corrective
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Process for Developing The PM Rationale

action to a whole population of components in a plant (sometimes ~100), whereas the

problems that gave rise to the task additions may typically have affected only a very
few components. A 20% chance of a maintenance error per task can then cause many
more failures than it was intended to cure. This effect is enhanced if a task is performed
many times in the life of a component.

Members of the expert panels were therefore routinely asked whether or not the
component type being considered presented a significantly higher risk of further
failures if intrusive preventive maintenance was performed too frequently. Their
responses and examples of failure types known to be mediated by personnel error
provided input to a discussion of the level of conservatism represented by the task
intervals.

49