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Availability and reliability analysis of integrated reverse osmosis - Forward

osmosis desalination network

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DOI: 10.5004/dwt.2018.22147

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 Desalination and Water Treatment 109 (2018) 1–7
March
www.deswater.com
doi: 10.5004/dwt.2018.22147

Availability and reliability analysis of integrated reverse osmosis – forward

osmosis desalination network

Usman Safder, Pouya Ifaei, KiJeon Nam, Jouan Rashidi, ChangKyoo Yoo*
Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Center for Environmental Studies,
Kyung Hee University, Seocheon-dong 1, Giheung-gu, Yongin-Si, Gyeonggi-Do 446-701, Korea, Tel. +82-31-201-3824;
Fax: +82-31-202-8854; email: [email protected] (C. Yoo)

Received 19 December 2017; Accepted 20 January 2018

abstract
The hybrid desalination of reverse osmosis (RO) with forward osmosis (FO) is an innovative technol-
ogy for freshwater production worldwide, which provides many advantages such as RO fouling and
scaling, recovery of the energy of RO brine, minimizing the power consumption and minimizing the
use of chemicals required for conventional pretreatment steps. For this reason, breakdowns, blockage
of the membrane, pressure losses and preventive maintenance have to be minimized in duration and
frequency to ensure the maximum availability and indeed improving the availability or reliability of
the system leads objectively to the reduction of operating costs. In this study, hybrid fault tree anal-
ysis method based fuzzy set theory was considered to evaluate the availability and reliability of the
integrated RO–FO desalination system. For assessing availability, the system was divided into four
subsystems such as seawater intake pump, pressurization stage, FO stage and RO stage. The data were
collected from reliability data bank and probabilities estimated by considering the fuzzy set theory,
wherever detailed data were not available. The overall unavailability of the hybrid system was 0.0156.
Keywords: Hybrid desalination system; Availability; Reliability; Fault tree analysis; Failure probabilities

1. Introduction distillation and vapor compression are the dominant

distillation technologies. Membrane processes such as reverse
The development of human life depends on the
osmosis (RO), electrodialysis and an emerging technology
availability of freshwater resources. Some regions have lim-
forward osmosis (FO) are used for different desalination
ited resources of freshwater while the others have abundant
purposes. The desalination technologies using membrane
resources. According to the study, more than one billion
require energy as mechanical or electrical. However, RO has
of people do not have access to freshwater [1]. The global
the largest installed capacity among them [4].
freshwater demand increases so that it is predicted that water
In the last few years, a growing interest in the application
scarcity is becoming new rising challenge [2].
of FO phenomenon in seawater desalination was observed.
Desalination is recognized as a necessary alternative
It is being investigated through laboratory and pilot scale
to overcome the water shortage dilemma [3]. Various
and has proved several advantages [5]. In FO, the flow of
desalination technologies were employed and are
water across the semi-permeable membrane occurs due to
classified into two categories: distillation and membrane
the osmotic pressure gradient between the two sides of the
technologies. Distillation converts saltwater into steam and
membrane. This process is established with no energy cost
then condenses into liquid. Distillation process consumes
for transmembrane flow except that required to circulate
thermal and electrical energy. Multi-stage flash, multi-effect
solutions in the system. The osmotic driving forces in FO can

* Corresponding author.

Presented at the 10th International Desalination Workshop (IDW 2017), November 22–25, 2017, Busan, Korea.
1944-3994/1944-3986 © 2018 Desalination Publications. All rights reserved.
2 U. Safder et al. / Desalination and Water Treatment 109 (2018) 1–7

be significantly greater than hydraulic driving forces in RO, The main aim of the paper was to estimate the
leading to higher water flux rates and recoveries [6]. availability and the reliability of the integrated RO–FO
The FO desalination process involves two steps. First, network desalination system and contribute to assessing
the freshwater is extracted from the raw water source using the performance of the system, by utilizing FTA and fuzzy
a draw solution while the second step deals with separa- sets. The goal was realized by achieving the following two
tion of the osmotic agent from the freshwater. Many options objectives:
were suggested including integration of FO with current
• To identify the causes and sequences of failures in the
RO desalination process. The FO process was suggested
integrated RO–FO network.
as a membrane pretreatment step for seawater prior to RO
• To assess the failure rate of the integrated RO–FO
desalination and has been used to desalinate feed streams
network by identifying the components and events
ranging from brackish water to saline [7]. Among several
causing downtime and unwanted effects.
hybrid FO systems, RO–FO hybrid desalination system,
which first proposed by Cath et al. [5] and later studied by
Kolluri et al. [8] to increase the product water quality and 2. Availability and reliability assessment of
to reduce the power consumption of seawater desalination. desalination network
Cost reductions are attributed to lower energy requirement
The objective of the availability and the reliability of any
for pretreatment and RO process, fewer pretreatment pro-
continuously operating system is to maintain the desired
cesses, lower maintenance and chemical costs and decrease
level of production on a continuous basis without failures
in RO membrane costs.
and to restore the system as each time it suffers from failure
One of the important performance measures of any contin-
[13]. Thus, management can achieve the minimum total cost
uously operating desalination system, apart from its product
of production if availability and reliability are maintained at
water quality, power consumption and recovery ratio, is the
a high level.
overall availability. Integrated RO–FO system was designed
The reliability and availability of a system are systematic
for continuous operation; the availability of the system was
approach used to identify and assess the frequency and
considered more appropriate than reliability and used as an
causes of failures. It reduces and controls the effects of fail-
indicator of reliability. Improving the availability of the sys-
ure to ensure satisfactory performance of the system [14].
tem results in a frequent reduction in total production cost if
Human errors and component failures do not only affect the
availability and reliability are maintained at high level.
performance of the system but can also cause accidents. The
During the last few decades, researchers around the world
frequencies of such events are assessed during system design
have continued to make the improvement to the desalina-
and its operation. To enhance the performance and maximize
tion processes as the quality of membranes, energy recovery
the profit of system, reliability analysis has to be done at the
and combining various desalination processes to improve
design stage.
the performance. On the other hand, only a few studies are
interested in improving the reliability and the availability
of desalination systems. Hajeeh and Chaudhuri [9] tried to 2.1. Availability and reliability
assess the availability of one RO plant operating in Kuwait Reliability is defined as the ability of a device to perform
using fault tree analysis (FTA) method and showed that the a required function under specified conditions during a
availability of the whole plant strongly depends on the plant given period [15]. If the time-to-failure distribution indicates
design and selection of subsystem’s material. Kutbi et al. [10] the reliability (R(t)) of the integrated system and especially
applied the same approach (FTA) for reliability analysis of exponential distribution with constant failure rate (ζ), the
RO plants operating in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and showed reliability function of the steady state system is given by
that the seawater intake system needs some improvements Eq. (1):
and a proper preventive maintenance should be applied.
Bourouni [11] compared the two methods: FTA and reliabil-
ity block diagram (RBD) for availability assessment of one of R(t ) = e −ζt (1)
the RO plant operating in Kuwait and showed that the FTA is
too difficult to apply for complex systems. Maintainability is an important factor while designing
Having reviewed the relevant literature, significant any continuously operating system. As the total downtime is
effort has been devoted to performing the availability and composed of the time for inspection and detection of faults,
reliability study of RO plant. The reliability and availability of then the time of repair faults and administrative time can be
the integrated RO–FO system should observe to improve the minimized to reduce the total downtime. The maintainability
system design and its operation. However, it is often difficult in terms of downtime is given in Eq. (2) as follows:
to estimate precise failure probability of the components due to
vague characteristics of the events. Fuzzy methods might be the
M(t ) = 1 − e − µt (2)
only way when data are insufficient and vague. The fuzzy set
theory was introduced by Zadeh [12] to deal with the problem
in which the phenomena are imprecise and vague. The fuzzy Here, M(t) represents the maintainability function and
set theory provides a useful tool for directly working with the µ represents the mean downtime in negative exponential
linguistic expression in reliability analyses. Hence, the fuzzy function. Since both reliability and maintainability are
set concept was used to assess the failure rate of vague events important factors for continuously operating systems, these
to estimate the probabilities of human unpredictability errors. two factors can be combined into one measure, availability.
 U. Safder et al. / Desalination and Water Treatment 109 (2018) 1–7 3

Availability is defined as the fraction of the time that

a component and system are able to perform its required
function [16]. The availability can be classified into two
distinct senses: interval availability such as the probability
that a system works on demand and inherent availability
such as the probability that the system is working at the
specific time. It can be used for continuously operating the
system and determined by Eq. (3) as follows:

O
A(t ) = (3)
O+D

Here, A(t) is the availability of the system, O and

D indicate the uptime and downtime, respectively.
Availability represents the probability that a system is in use
at a given time t interval and can be calculated using Eq. (4):

MTTF µ
A= =
MTTF + MTTR µ + ζ (4)

MTTR ζ
A= = (5)
MTTR + MTTF ζ + µ

where A in Eq. (5) represents the unavailability of the system.

MTTF is the mean time to failure and MTTR is the mean time
to repair and equivalent to (1/µ) and (1/ζ), respectively. In Fig. 1. Different methods for reliability and availability
above equations availability A is determined from failure assessment [17].
rate (ζ) and repairing rate (µ) assumed to be constant [17]
(exponential distribution). Both quantitative and qualitative information about the
system are obtained from FTA. The construction of FT provides
2.2. Availability modeling methods of industrial system a better understanding of the potential sources of failures,
which will lead to rethink the design and the operation per-
For analyzing the reliability of any designed and
spective to eliminate the potential hazards. FT can analyze the
operated system, many methods have been developed
system to identify the combinations of component failures,
such as FTA, failure mode effects and criticality analysis
operational errors, or other faults that initiate the top event.
(FMECA), RBD, reliability graph and Poisson’s process.
Finally, it may be used to calculate the demand failure proba-
Fig. 1 shows the different methods used in reliability and
bility, unreliability and unavailability of any system.
availability assessment [18]. Each method has its own pros
FT is a logical diagram that depicts the relationship
and cons. FMECA is qualitative analysis and reviewed many
between the events giving rise to the failure. “AND gates” are
components, assemblies and subsystems to identify the
used to connect the groups of events and conditions, if all of
failure modes, critical failures and their causes and effects.
them are required to be present simultaneously to cause the
Monte Carlo simulation draws a realization of each random
hazardous event to occur, which is shown in Fig. 2(a), while
variable and then estimates which units are down and for how
“OR gates” represents the existence of the alternative ways in
long. The system availability over the time can be determined
which a failure can occur, is shown in Fig. 2(b).
based on these calculations. Among all analytical techniques,
Consider the “AND” and “OR” FT as given in Fig. 2 where
FTA is the most important method used for reliability and
the simultaneous existence of the events E1, E2 … En results in
availability assessment of different kinds of systems.
the top events and the top event exist at time t if and only if
FTA is a well-known probabilistic approach in the
at least one of the n basic event occurs at time t, respectively.
domain of RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability
Thus, the system unavailability is given by Eqs. (6) and (7),
and safety). FTA is a bottom-to-top (deductive) methodology
respectively.
for estimating the potential causes of accidents and failure
probabilities. FTA is centered about determining the causes i −n
of undesirable events, while referred as the top event. Fault A s (t ) = ∏ Ai = Pr( E1 ∩ E2 ... ∩ En ) = Pr( E1 )Pr( E2 )...Pr( En ) (6)
trees (FTs) are drawn at the top of the events. It the proceeds i −1

downward, dissecting the system in increasing details to

determine the root causes or combinations of causes of the i −n i −n
top event. Top events are usually considered as the major A s (t ) = 1 − ∏ (1 − Ai ) = Pr( E1 ∪ E2 ... ∪ En ) = 1 − ∏ (1 − Pr( Ei )
failure consequences, engendering serious safety hazards i −1 i −1

and the potential for significant economic loss. (7)

4 U. Safder et al. / Desalination and Water Treatment 109 (2018) 1–7

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of fault tree gates. (a) AND gate

and (b) OR gate. Fig. 3. The fuzzy number represents linguistic values [19].

3. Methodology of RO–FO desalination network

Probabilities of the basic events must be known in
advance in order to evaluate the failure probability of the top
event. The fuzzy set theory was used to get the probabilities
of the basic events in this study. The human error rate, the
expert’s subjective assessments with linguistic variables were
represented in fuzzy possibility scores (FPSs).
The evaluation data were expressed in linguistic terms
such as very low, low, fairly low, medium, fairly high,
Fig. 4. Schematic superstructure representation of RO–FO
high and very high. Fig. 3 represented the fuzzy number
integrated desalination system [8].
of these linguistic values [19]. The fuzzy number is used
to handle imprecise information. There are many forms of
fuzzy numbers to represent the linguistic values. The tri- FO stage which are coupled mechanically. In the RO–FO
angular and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers were used here to process, draw solution and seawater are pumped into
denote failure possibilities. Transformation function was the FO membrane in an opposite direction of flow mode.
used to convert the FPS into fuzzy failure rate (FFR) given Freshwater will cross the FO membrane from the feed to
by Eqs. (8) and (9). the draw solution side of the membrane in the direction
of the osmotic pressure gradient. After leaving the FO
membrane, now the diluted draw solution is input to RO
frequency of an error
FFR = (8) subsystem for freshwater production and osmotic agent
total chance that an event having error recycling and reuse. RO stage rejects salts and dissolved
contaminants that may have crossed the membrane from
Swain and Guttmann [20] suggested that the error rate of the impaired water source. A second-stage FO process
a routine human operation is 10–2 to 10–3 and the lower bound can be implemented to dilute seawater before discharge
of the error rate is 5 × 10–5. and to further concentrate and reduce the volume of the
impaired water stream. Most important, because brine of
RO subsystem is used as high salinity stream and seawater
1 / 10 , FPS ≠ 0 ,
k
FFR =  (9) is used as low salinity stream in FO subsystem, the energy
 0 , otherwise required for subsequent RO desalination of the diluted
saline water is reduced.
Here, k = [(1 – FPS)/FPS]1/3 × a, where a = 2.301. The
constant a is appropriate estimation of failure rate of 3.2. Hybrid FTA algorithm
desalination system. It can be realized that the range of A stepwise description of the hybrid FTA algorithm of
failure rate obtained by the fuzzy probability score corre- integrated RO–FO desalination system.
sponds with the range of human error data suggestion by
Swain and Guttmann [20]. The value of k is taken from Lin • Select the top event and construct FT logic diagram.
and Wang [19]. Lastly, unavailability of the integrated system • Divide the elements of FT logic diagram into objective
was estimated by combining the hardware failure rate and probability analysis and subjective linguistic evaluation
the FPS of human error from the top event of FTA. of human performance and vague events.
• Select hardware failure-rate estimation from data bank.
• Conduct linguistic expressions for human performance
3.1. Integrated RO–FO system description
and vague events and transform into fuzzy number.
The schematic process flow diagram of the investigated • Convert fuzzy numbers into FPSs and transform into
system is shown in Fig. 4 proposed by Kolluri et al. [8]. FFR.
The integrated system produced freshwater in minimum • Integrate both failure-rate to estimate the failure-rate
power consumption based on FO and RO principles. of top event and unavailability or reliability of the
The main system comprises two main stages: RO and system.
 U. Safder et al. / Desalination and Water Treatment 109 (2018) 1–7 5

4. Results and discussion evaluation for human performance and vague events.
Events such as careless operation, noise, external leakages,
The system availability was computed based on Oreda
inadequate microbial control, monitoring and equipment
report 2002 [21], recorded data and fuzzy set. A FT diagram
design were categorized as fuzzy subjective evaluation
was drawn for the integrated system using AND and OR
events. Other events of system unavailability were cate-
gates as shown in Fig. 5. The output of these gates in terms of
gorized under objective probability analysis. The fuzzy
unavailability was computed. The most important parameters
linguistic evaluation events were represented in shaded
considered for estimating the unavailability of the RO–FO sys-
blocks in Fig 5.
tem were semi-permeable membranes, filters, high-pressure
pumps (HPPs), pipeline leakages, instruments and controls. Step 2: Failure rate estimation was obtained by referring
Unavailability of the system due to power supply disruption the Oreda report 2002 [21]. The failure rate of corresponding
was not considered in the overall estimation of unavailabil- component faults shown in Table 1.
ity. Since it is independent of the RO and FO technology. Step 3: For human performance and vague events, con-
The unavailability of the RO–FO system was estimated using ducted the linguistic assessment and assigned the scale
“AND” and “OR” gates as given in Eqs. (6) and (7). rating (such as very low, low, fairly low, medium, fairly
high, high and very high) to each fault based on expert
opinion.
4.1. Hybrid FTA failure rate calculation Step 4: After obtaining the fuzzy number, convert
Step 1: Divide the elements of fault-tree logic diagram fuzzy numbers into FPSs. This was done by using Eqs. (10)
into objective probability analysis and fuzzy linguistic through (14).

Fig. 5. FT logic diagram of unavailability of integrated RO–FO system.

6 U. Safder et al. / Desalination and Water Treatment 109 (2018) 1–7

Based on the calculated failure rate given in Tables 1 and 2,

 x , 0 ≤ x ≤ 1
fmax ( x) =  (10) the unavailability of the seawater pump was calculated from
0 , otherwise the top down event of FTA and using Eqs. (1) and (2).

1 − x , 0 ≤ x ≤ 1 Asw = 7.25 × 10 −4 (15)

fmin ( x) = 
 0 , otherwise (11)

FPS R ( M ) = sup[ f M ( x) ∧ fmax ( x)] (12) 4.2.2. Pretreatment system

x
The unavailability of the filter was zero:

FPS L ( M ) = sup[ f M ( x) ∧ fmin ( x)] (13)

x Afilter = 0 (16)

FPST ( M ) = [FPS R ( M ) + 1 − FPS L ( M )] / 2 (14) 4.2.3. FO stage

Since two trains of FO modules were taken in series,
The fuzzy number and its corresponding failure the unreliability of the trains was to be multiplied to get the
possibility scores of the fuzzy events shown in Table 2. unreliability of the FO subsystem. In addition, brine stream
Step 5: Transform FPS into FFR, in order to integrate both of RO subsystem is pump to FO subsystem and considered
failure rate and estimate the unavailability of the integrated as high salinity stream in FO stage. From the FFR data on the
RO–FO system using Eq. (9). The failure possibility scores of two trains, the unavailability was determined as follows:
the fuzzy events and its corresponding FFRs are shown in
Table 2.
Step 6: Calculate the unavailability of the subsystem of AFO = 1.78 × 10 −3 (17)
the integrated network from estimated failure rates.
4.2.4. RO stage
4.2. Calculation of reliability indices of integrated system
RO stage of the system was comprised of an
Based on the above failure rate data, the unavailability of HPP, membrane module and stream to FO stage. The
the subsystem was calculated in the following sections. unavailability of the each of the items of RO stage was
determined as follows:
4.2.1. Seawater pump
ARO = 0.0132 (18)
Seawater pump supplied the entire feed to the FO system,
hence, when seawater pump failed, the system was down.

Table 1 Table 3
Failure rate data for hybrid system Ranking of various subsystem of integrated RO–FO system

Failure events Failure rate/year Fault event Code Availability/h

1,111 2.45 × 10 –4 RO stage 13 0.9868

11,141 7.52 × 10–5 HPP 1,311 0.9870
11,142 6.51 × 10–5 FO stage 14 0.9982
11,151 7.06 × 10–5 Dosing pump 122 0.9986
11,152 2.26 × 10–4 Seawater intake 11 0.99927
11,211 7.19 × 10–4 RO membrane 1,312 0.99981
11,212 7.42 × 10–4 FO membrane 1,412 0.99983
1,311 0.01303 Filter 121 1.000

Table 2
Converting fuzzy numbers into fuzzy failure rate

Failure events/elements 1,112 1,113 11,143 113 1,312 1,412 1,122

FPSR (M) 0.275 0.384 0.237 0.196 0.315 0.305 0.176
1-FPSL (M) 0.055 0.064 0.0515 0.049 0.063 0.061 0.049
FPST (M) 0.165 0.224 0.1442 0.122 0.189 0.183 0.113
FFR 1.12 × 10–4 3.31 × 10–4 6.91 × 10–5 3.71 × 10–5 1.86 × 10–4 1.65 × 10–4 2.69 × 10–5
 U. Safder et al. / Desalination and Water Treatment 109 (2018) 1–7 7

4.2.5. Overall system reliability RO–FO system is recommended because it has high perfor-
mance, low power consumption and economically feasible.
The overall unavailability of the integrated RO–FO sys-
tem was determined by applying Eq. (15).
Acknowledgment
APlant = 1 − (1 − Asw ) × (1 − Apretreatment ) × (1 − AFO ) × (1 − ARO ) (19) This work was supported by the National Research
Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea
government (MSIP; No. 2017R1E1A1A03070713).
APlant = 0.0156 (20)
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