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Desalination Plant, Minor/Major Failures, Repairs, Semi – Markov, Regenerative Process.

In many desalination plants, multi stage flash desalination process is normally used for sea water purification. The probabilistic analysis and profitability of such a complex system with standby support mechanism is of great importance to avoid huge loses. Thus, the aim of this paper is to present a probabilistic analysis of evaporators of a desalination plant with major and minor failure categories and estimating various reliability indicators. The desalination plant operates round the clock and during the normal operation; six of the seven evaporators are in operation for water production while one evaporator is always under scheduled maintenance and used as standby. The complete plant is shut down for about one month during winter season for annual maintenance. The water supply during shutdown period is maintained through ground water and storage system. Any major failure or annual maintenance brings the evaporator/plant to a complete halt and appropriate repair or maintenance is undertaken. Measures of plant effectiveness such as mean time to system failure, availability, expected busy period for maintenance, expected busy period for repair, expected busy period during shutdown & expected number of repairs are obtained by using semi-Markov processes and regenerative point techniques. Profit incurred to the system is also evaluated. Seven years real data from a desalination plant are used in this analysis.