On determination of the preventive maintenance interval guaranteeing system availability under a periodic maintenance policy

Abstract

In order for an engineering system to maintain a certain level of availability, preventive maintenance actions are commonly performed. This paper deals with the analysis for determining the optimum frequency to perform preventive maintenance actions for a system exhibiting a linearly increasing hazard rate and a constant repair rate. Under a periodic maintenance policy, as long as a predetermined availability is guaranteed, the time interval between preventive maintenance actions incurring the minimal maintenance cost is selected. Considering both the maintenance cost and system availability, guidelines for determining the maintenance time interval are presented. Simple examples are also provided to illustrate these ideas.