Sensibility of Bayesian inference methods for reliability prediction of ageing systems, case of Diesel locomotives

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of reliability analysis of in-service identical systems when a limited number of lifetime data is available compared to censored ones. Lifetime (resp. censored) data characterise the life of failed (resp. non-failed) systems in the sample. Because, censored data induce biassed estimators of reliability model parameters, a methodology approach is proposed to overcome this inconvenience and improve the accuracy of the parameter estimation based on Bayesian inference methods. These methods combine, in an effective way, system’s life data and expert opinions learned from failure diagnosis of similar systems. Three Bayesian inference methods are considered: Classical Bayesian, Extended Bayesian and Bayesian Restoration Maximisation methods. Given a sample of lifetime data, simulated according to prior opinions of maintenance expert, a sensibility analysis of each Bayesian method is performed. Reliability analysis of critical subsystems of Diesel locomotives is established under the proposed methodology approach. The relevance of each Bayesian inference methods with respect to collected reliability data of critical subsystems and expert opinions is discussed.

Keywords:

• reliability analysis
• Bayesian inference
• expert opinion
• parameter estimation
• sensibility analysis

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Mr Louis-Romain Joly, engineer within maintenance Technicentre, Quatre-Mares (SNCF), and Miss Nathalie Pons, student of ENSAE ParisTech, for their contributions.