Real-Time Life-Cycle Assessment of High-Voltage Circuit Breakers for Maintenance Using Online Condition Monitoring Data

Life-cycle assessment of high-voltage (HV) circuit breakers (CB) in transmission systems, if efficiently done, can lead to an optimal decision on when, where, and how to perform maintenance. This paper elaborates a new approach on the identification of CB's deterioration/recovery states, i.e., the so-called life-cycle assessment, using its control circuit condition monitoring data. Reliability-oriented performance indicators, which can assess the condition of different physical parts of an HV CB in real time, are introduced first. Then, a quantitative methodology to define the probability of the CB falling into each class of deterioration/recovery states, i.e., healthy, vulnerable, troubled, and failed, is proposed. Using this approach, maintenance decisions can be effectively made on different parts of an HV CB, the impact of maintenance can be quantified, and system-wide maintenance optimization with respect to the condition-based distinction of CBs can be made possible. Field condition monitoring data recorded at different time intervals during the CB operation is utilized to evaluate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach.