Fault Tree Analysis of Failures in Fire Detection System of Grid Connected Photovoltaic System
E. Suresh Kumar1, Bijan Sarkar2
1E. Suresh Kumar, Production Engineering Department Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
2Dr. Bijan Sarkar, Production Engineering Department Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
Manuscript received on January 30, 2013. | Revised Manuscript received on February 12, 2013. | Manuscript published on February 28, 2013. | PP: 146-151 | Volume-2 Issue-3, February 2013. | Retrieval Number: C1052022313/2013©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: The reliability of the grid connected photovoltaic system is primarily and strongly depends on the reliability of the electrical protection systems, failure of which may lead to fire. So a fire detection system is the crucial component in a grid connected PV system. So its reliability is directed related to the overall reliability of the PV system. A literature review of reliability data of fire detection system was made resulting to rough estimates of some failure frequencies. No theoretical or technical articles on the structure of reliability models of these installations were found. In this paper the classifications of failure severity were made from the system point of view by counting failures of components when possible. Since there are no established fault tree structures available for fire detection system in photovoltaics, these component failure frequencies are intended to be used in the first round of iteration in the fault trees suggested here. The analysis leads to the necessity of the estimation of reliability of fire detection system for the assessment of the reliability of the grid connected photovoltaic power system.
Keywords: Fault tree analysis, Top event, Reliability, Fire detectors, Boolean input.