Availability analysis for periodically inspected systems subject to multiple failure modes

ABSTRACT

The instantaneous availability and steady-state availability of a competing-risk system undergoing periodic inspections are studied in this paper. Specifically, a repairable system with a working state and M failure modes is considered. Each failure mode has a random failure time. When the system fails from the ith(i = 1, 2, ..., M) failure mode, corresponding corrective repair (CR) is performed which takes a random time Y_i (i = 1, 2, ..., M). Two maintenance models are formulated. At the time of inspection, if the system is working, then the system is restored to as good as new condition in Model 1 while no maintenance actions are taken in Model 2. Some analytical results on the instantaneous availability and the steady-state availability for the two models are derived. A numerical example for an Integrated Digital Communication System is presented to demonstrate the application of the developed approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Availability analysis
• periodic inspections
• multiple failure modes
• renewal process

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71371031 & 71631001].

Notes on contributors

Qingan Qiu

Qingan Qiu received his B.S. degree in Taiyuan University of Technology in 2014, and is working towards the Ph.D. degree in Management at the School of Management & Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China. His research interests are in stochastic modeling, reliability, and applications of probability.

Lirong Cui

Lirong Cui is a professor in the School of Management & Economics at Beijing Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. degree in Probability and Statistics from the University of Wales, UK in 1994. He has worked on quality and reliability related problems since 1986, and published more than 100 papers and technical reports. In 2000, he co-authored a book on reliability which was published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. He serves as an associate editor for Quality Technology & Quantitative Management and Communications in Statistics: Theory and Methods, Simulation and Computation. In 2005, He was awarded the new century excellent talents in university of China. His recent research interests are in stochastic modeling, quality and reliability engineering, simulation and optimization, operations research, and applications of probability and statistics in various fields.