Abstract:

According to the character of complex long-term repairable storage systems, a method for evaluating their storage lives under the restriction of availability is presented. Such systems are composed of three kinds of serial components. The first kind of component has a high reliability with a given fault time distribution, and there are no inspections scheduled for it. The second kind of component undergoes periodic inspections, and once found failed, it is repaired to a condition as a new one. The third kind of component is preventively replaced periodically with the same cycle as the second kind. By analyzing the transient availability of each component respectively, the average availability of the whole repairable storage system is derived. Using it as a restriction, the evaluation and optimization model for the storage life of the system is established and the optimal maintenance strategy which maximizes the storage life is given.