Reliability-based design of systems considering preventive maintenance and minimal repair

Abstract

A reliability-based design (RBD) of a mixed series-parallel system with deteriorative components for minimal life cycle cost is presented in this paper. Two formulations are presented based on the type of preventive maintenance modeling. These formulations incorporate the effects of preventive maintenance and minimal repairs to adjust the system failure rate. Genetic Algorithms are used to obtain an optimal system design. The economic life of the designed system is also evaluated. The results have practical applications in the area of computer integrated manufacturing where a system must perform below a given failure rate. © World Scientific Publishing Company.