Failures of Pumps Used in an Oil Refinery KFUPM（失败的泵用于KFUPM炼油厂）.pdf

The 6th Saudi Engineering Conference, KFUPM, Dhahran, December 2002 Vol. 4. 475 WEIBULL ANALYSIS OF TIME BETWEEN FAILURES OF PUMPS USED IN AN OIL REFINERY 1 1 2 Anwar Khalil Sheikh , Muhammad Younas , Dahham Matar Al-Anazi 1: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261 2: Saudi Aramco, Dhahran 31311 myounasa@.sa, anazidm@.sa ABSTRACT This paper is based on the time to failure or time between failure data and associated maintenance cost for a set of pumps used in an oil refinery collected over a period of five years. Out of a large number of pumps in operation, a set of pumps are identified which have experienced 3 failures in five years. The Pareto analysis performed on this set of pumps further narrowed down the group of most critical (worst performing) pumps. This group of most critical pumps is the primary target for the further investigation and Weibull reliability analysis. The analysis started by determining the failure modes of each pump .The highest number of failures are attributed to the failure of pump seals followed by downtime due to overhaul, malfunction of impeller, failures of bearings, impellers, shaft, couplings, etc. Seals and bearings are essentially non-repairable items and are currently being replaced upon failure. It is found that majority of pump failures is because of seals, overhaul, impellers and bearings. β The Weibull analysis helps to determine the reliability function, R(t) = exp[-(t/η) ] and its parameters (β,η). The shape parameter β is a function of σ/µ i.e., β = φ (σ/µ), where σ and µ are the me