Hefei Light Source II (HLS-II) is a vacuum ultraviolet
synchrotron light source. The HLS-II alarm system is responsible for
monitoring the alarms of the process variables and distributing the
alarm events in time. Nuisance alarms reduce the functionality,
credibility and trustworthiness of the alarm system. This paper
proposes a method for design alarm deadband and delay timers to
remove the nuisance alarm events to the expected ratio. An optimal
deadband width is calculated to reduce the alarm events while
balancing the effects of reducing the occurrence number of alarm
events and increasing the duration of alarm events. If the expected
ratio is not met after using the optimal deadband width, the delay
timers are set additionally. The Bayesian estimation approach is
used to estimate the probability that the delay timers eliminate the
alarm events. This method is based on statistical properties of the
process variables and can effectively remove nuisance alarm
events. Two examples of the HLS-II alarm system are provided to
illustrate the proposed method. In the two examples, the optimal
deadband removed 99.27% and 88.92% of nuisance alarms
respectively.