Statistical lifetime of hydro generators and failure analysis

One of the most important questions for manufacturers and users of electric power equipment is the failure probability and the expected lifetime of the produced and installed equipment. This question cannot be answered easily because there are many different parameters that influence lifetime behavior. If a breakdown occurs, it has to be determined whether the machine can made operational again within the technical and economical framework or if it has to be completely or partially replaced. The technical decision concerning repair or replacement often results in electric diagnostic measurements, in which economic decisions determined by corporate policy play a large role. In this paper, the characteristics of typical insulation systems for hydro generators will be discussed and a failure statistics of each system will be calculated. The resulting lifetimes for these systems will then be evaluated with Weibull distributions.