Speaker
Jean-Marie Foray
(CERN)
Description
CERN has grown up to become a facility hosting very large and complex particle accelerators and detectors. Power supply equipment plays a key role in the availability of these machines.
The backbone of the CERN power supply is an internal 18 kV distribution network feeding some 450 power transformers. For decades these power transformers have been considered as critical equipment and have been subject to regular inspections. The output of this regular survey was a comprehensive report compiling measurements, inspection results and observations for each transformer. This report was used to assess any corrective actions to be taken on each transformer. But the bulk of individual reports did not provide a global picture as required by the maintenance managers.
Therefore a pilot project has been started in 2011: the main objective was to change the scope of data analysis, looking at the whole pool of transformers, rather than individual transformers on a case by case basis. This paper describes the building blocks that have been put into place to achieve both data consolidation and more relevant reporting.
It is still too early to discern the impact of this new method on the global availability of the CERN machines. But the presentation will highlight the initial benefits observed by our maintenance managers.
Author
Jean-Marie Foray
(CERN)
