Abstract:

A minimum cost preventive maintenance scheduling model for deteriorating structure is proposed. The initial damage and the cumulative damage during operation are quantitatively measured with the main fatigue crack length in the structure. By taking into account the cost of failure and planned maintenance of the structure, the cost of per unit operation time for every possible preventive stopping is given as a sequence of random variables. Finally, the formulae to determine the optimal maintenance period and an example are given.

Key words: preventive maintenance, optimal policies, stochastic crack growth, fatigue failures