Rational Reliability Centered Maintenance Optimization for power distribution systems

•Determined experimentally the most critical equipment through the adoption of the FMECA approach.•Identified characteristics of dependability, reliability indices and the cost of maintenance.•Made a comparison between the three approaches: SPPM, RCM and RRCM.•Adopted the maintenance plan required for selected equipment.•Exploited this result in feedback to improve the power distribution systems.

Reliability Centered Maintenance Method (RCM) currently used for maintenance optimization based on the analysis of modes of dysfunctional system failures (FMEA), and after determining the criticality of the system, an adequate maintenance plan is adopted. Following the succession of several applications of this method, in several areas, along twenty years of experience, it was proved that the use of this approach was incomplete for other analysis and evaluation criteria were completely ignored especially in electrical systems. Our view is to apply this method rationally by introducing a whole dependability study (RAMS).

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