Optimal Maintenance Strategy without Monitoring Component Failures  
Author Minjae Park

 
Co-Author(s) Hoang Pham

 
Abstract In this study, a maintenance model is developed for a k-out-of-n system. The optimum policies are determined for a maintenance cycle when the component failure is not detected automatically until system failure. The objective of this study is to find the maintenance cycle that minimizes the expected total system cost. Park and Pham [1] have developed the generalized block replacement model when a failure is detected immediately. A system failure is not considered in Park and Pham’s [1] model using the threshold level to prevent a system failure. On the other hand, in this study, it is considered that component failures are not monitored and thus, system failures may occur because they occur in real life from time to time. Further, the downtime period of each failed component using the order statistics for life time distribution for k-out-of-n systems is investigated. Numerical examples are discussed in order to demonstrate the applicability of the methodology derived in this paper.

 
Keywords Block replacement policy; Downtime cost; Failure cost; k-out-of-n system; Order statistics; Renewal process
   
    Article #:  2040
 
Proceedings of the 20th ISSAT International Conference on Reliability and Quality in Design
August 7-9, 2014 - Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.