Optimal quasi-periodic maintenance policies for two-unit series system

To investigate the effects of various random factors on the preventive maintenance （PM） decision-making of one type of two-unit series system, an optimal quasi-periodic PM policy is introduced. Assume that PM is perfect for unit 1 and only mechanical service for unit 2 in the model. PM activity is randomly performed according to a dynamic PM plan distributed in each implementation period. A replacement is determined based on the competing results of unplanned and planned replacements. The unplanned replacement is trigged by a catastrophic failure of unit 2, and the planned replacement is executed when the PM number reaches the threshold N. Through modeling and analysis, a solution algorithm for an optimal implementation period and the PM number is given, and optimal process and parametric sensitivity are provided by a numerical example. Results show that the implementation period should be decreased as soon as possible under the condition of meeting the needs of practice, which can increase mean operating time and decrease the long-run cost rate.

Availability modelling for periodically inspected systems under mixed maintenance policies

The availability of a periodic inspection system under mixed maintenance policies is studied in this paper.To accommodate the characteristic of multiple failure modes for complex systems,the system failures can be divided into two failure modes:hard failure and soft failure.When hard failure occurs,the corresponding corrective maintenance will be performed,taking a random time under the perfect maintenance policy;in contrast,if the soft failure is found,the corresponding preventive maintenance will be performed,taking a random time under the imperfect maintenance policy.The dynamic age setback model is adopted for imperfect maintenance,which can accurately reflect the fault characteristics of the degraded system.Then an analytical model for system steady state availability and instantaneous availability are derived.Moreover,the optimal method to maximize the system steady-state availability through adjusting the inspection interval is researched.According to the above research,the optimization of system unit time cost,preventive maintenance intervals and availability is researched.Finally,the developed approach is demonstrated by a numerical example.

Wind Turbine Optimal Preventive Maintenance Scheduling Using Fibonacci Search and Genetic Algorithm

Maintenance scheduling is essential and crucial for wind turbines (WTs) to avoid breakdowns andreduce maintenance costs. Many maintenance models have been developed for WTs’ maintenance planning, suchas corrective, preventive, and predictive maintenance. Due to communities’ dependence on WTs for electricityneeds, preventive maintenance is the most widely used method for maintenance scheduling. The downside tousing this approach is that preventive maintenance (PM) is often done in fixed intervals, which is inefficient. In thispaper, a more detailed maintenance plan for a 2 MW WT has been developed. The paper’s focus is to minimize aWT’s maintenance cost based on a WT’s reliability model. This study uses a two-layer optimization framework:Fibonacci and genetic algorithm. The first layer in the optimization method (Fibonacci) finds the optimal numberof PM required for the system. In the second layer, the optimal times for preventative maintenance and optimalcomponents to maintain have been determined to minimize maintenance costs. The Monte Carlo simulationestimates WT component failure times using their lifetime distributions from the reliability model. The estimatedfailure times are then used to determine the overall corrective and PM costs during the system’s lifetime. Finally,an optimal PM schedule is proposed for a 2 MW WT using the presented method. The method used in this papercan be expanded to a wind farm or similar engineering systems.

Analysis of a POMDP Model for an Optimal Maintenance Problem with Multiple Imperfect Repairs

I consider a system whose deterioration follows a discrete-time and discrete-state Markov chain with an absorbing state. When the system is put into practice, I may select operation (wait), imperfect repair, or replacement at each discrete-time point. The true state of the system is not known when it is operated. Instead, the system is monitored after operation and some incomplete information concerned with the deterioration is obtained for decision making. Since there are multiple imperfect repairs, I can select one option from them when the imperfect repair is preferable to operation and replacement. To express this situation, I propose a POMDP model and theoretically investigate the structure of an optimal maintenance policy minimizing a total expected discounted cost for an unbounded horizon. Then two stochastic orders are used for the analysis of our problem.

SOME RESULTS ON COMPARISON OF MAINTENANCE POLICIES

In this paper, we study the stochastic comparisons of minimal repair replacement policies in repairable case. We give some results on comparisons of the same unit for different policies and on comparisons of the same policies for different units.

Network-level optimization method for road network maintenance programming based on network efficiency

To maintain their capacity,transportation infrastructures are in need of regular maintenance and rehabilitation.The major challenge facing transportation engineers is the network-level policies to maintain the deteriorating roads at an acceptable level of serviceability.In this work,a quantitative transportation network efficiency measure is presented and then how to determine optimally network-level road maintenance policy depending on the road importance to the network performance has been demonstrated.The examples show that the different roads should be set different maintenance time points in terms of the retention capacities of the roads,because the different roads play different roles in network and have different important degrees to the network performance.This network-level road maintenance optimization method could not only save lots of infrastructure investments,but also ensure the service level of the existing transportation system.

Optimal maintenance decisions for gamma deteriorating systems

An optimal replacement model for gamma deteriorating systems is studied. This methodology uses a gamma distribution to model the material degradation, and the impact of imperfect maintenance actions on the system reliability is investigated. The state of a degrading system immediately after the imperfect maintenance action is assumed as a random variable and the maintenance time follows a geometric process. A maintenance policy （N） is applied by which the system will be repaired whenever it experiences Nth preventive maintenance （PM）, and an optimal policy （N＊） could be determined numerically or analytically for minimizing the long-run average cost per unit time. Finally, a numerical example is presented to demonstrate the use of this policy.

Optimal opportunistic maintenance model of multi-unit systems

An opportunistic maintenance model is presented for a continuously deteriorating series system with economical de-pendence. The system consists of two kinds of units, which are respectively subjected to the deterioration failure described by Gamma process and the random failure described by Poisson process. A two-level opportunistic policy defined by three decision parameters is proposed to coordinate the different maintenance actions and minimize the long-run maintenance cost rate of the system. A computable expression of the average cost rate is established by using the renewal property of the stochastic process of the maintained system state. The optimal values of three deci- sion parameters are derived by an iteration approach based on the characteristic of Gamma process. The behavior of the proposed policy is illustrated through a numerical experiment. Comparative study with the widely used corrective maintenance policy demonstrates the advantage of the proposed opportunistic maintenance method in significantly reducing the maintenance cost. Simultane- ously, the applicable area of this opportunistic model is discussed by the sensitivity analysis of the set-up cost and random failure rate.

Maintenance and Condition-Based Maintenance

The evolution of maintenance management is briefly introduced in this paper, from corrective maintenance to preventive maintenance. First, a range of condition monitoring and fault diagnosis techniques developed in different industries are surveyed; Second, many methods of condition monitoring are presented; Third, mathematical methods used in condition monitoring are given; Then the merits and shortcomings are discussed. Efficient maintenance policies are of fundamental importance in system engineering because of their fallbacks into the safety and economics of plant operation. Applying condition-based maintenance to a system can reduce the cost and extend the availability of facilities. With the advent of personal computers as fast and cost effective machines for data acquisition and processing of multiple signals some shortcomings mentioned in condition monitoring could be solved or reduced to some extent. These PCs can be a solution as a condition monitoring based maintenance system.

The Method of Mission Oriented Maintenance

In a real application , equipment in good condition sometimes have to be repaired because the equipment does not satisfy the requirements of the mission; However, it is not necessary to repair some equipment with failures because the failures do not affect the mission completion. In these cases, maintenance activity guided by present maintenance methods may sometimes affect the mission completion in time or bring about extra maintenance. To overcome the shortage of present maintenance methods, we propose an idea and method of mission oriented maintenance (MOM) to deal with the maintenance policy on these kinds of problems. This method can work out different maintenance policies corresponding to different missions with full consideration of missions and mission requirements for the equipment.

Importance measure based optimal maintenance policy for deteriorating components

An optimal maintenance policy tor deteriorating components based on quasi renew-process model is presented. In this policy, the first N - 1 failures of a component are maintained by repairs and the N＇h failure is maintained by replacement. The policy takes replacement actions at component lev- el by considering the fact that more and more components are designed to be field replaceable and maintenance activities are setting free from system halt. Concerning system structure impact, impor- tance measure is employed in the optimization procedure which aims at maximizing the long-rnn prof- it per unit time. Two example series parallel systems are taken to illustrate the policy and it is proved to work well. According to importance analysis, components are classified into important ones and unimportant ones based on the system behavior under their failures. Simulation results show that the presented policy makes a clear distinction between them and takes effective mainte- nance actions to compensate the deteriorating of components.

A Markov Model for Production and Maintenance Decision

In this paper,we consider a production machine which may fail and it is necessary to repair the machine after each failure and there are two statuses for each repair;in one case,we should replace the machine because of catastrophic failure and in the other case,only small repairs are needed.Times between failures and repair and replace times are random and demands are satisfied by inventory during repairing and replacing the machine;shortage level is limited.We model described system as a Markov chain and develop an algorithm to compute the expected number of transitions among states.

Optimal Replacement Policy for Cold Standby System

Investigators are attracted by the complexity and significance of preventive maintenance problem,and there are hundreds of maintenance models and methods to solve the maintenance problems of companies and army,going with a lot of investigative harvests. However,one-component system or series system is focused by most of the literature.The problem of preventive maintenance（PM） on cold standby repairable system does not attach importance despite the fact that the cold standby repairable system is ubiquitous in engineering systems.In this paper,an optimal replacement model for gamma deteriorating system is studied.This methodology presented uses a gamma distribution to model the material degradation,and the impact of imperfect maintenance actions on system reliability is investigated.After an imperfect maintenance action,the state of a degrading system is assumed as a random variable and the maintenance time follows a geometric process.A maintenance policy（N）is applied by which the system will be repaired whenever it experiences the Nth PM,and an optimal policy（N~＊） could be determined numerically or analytically for minimizing the long-run average cost per unit time.A numerical example about how to confirm the optimal maintenance time by the inspecting information of liquid coupling device is given to demonstrate the use of this policy.This paper presents a condition-based replacement policy for cold standby repairable system under continuous monitoring.Its contribution embody in two aspects,relaxing the restrictions of hypothesis and investigating the condition-based maintenance policy of the cold standby repairable system which is ignored by others.

Maintenance Policy for Multi-Component System with Fuzzy Lifetimes

The application of possibility theory to maintenance policies is proposed in this paper. The lifetime of a component is modeled as a fuzzy variable. Two types of replacement policies-block replacement and age replacement with fuzzy lifetimes are investigated. The theorems show that the long-run average fuzzy reward per unit time in both policies is just the expected cost per unit of time. In order to solve the proposed models, a hybrid intelligent algorithm is employed. Finally, numerical examples are provided for the sake of illustration.