Optimal Maintenance Decisions Over Bounded and Unbounded Horizons

摘要

Since maintenance of hydraulic structures is expensive, a decision model has beendeveloped to enable optimal maintenance decisions to be determined. To overcome the usual lack of deterioration data, we can apply a decision-theoretic approach that is initialized with expert judgment and can be updated with actual data. Three related cost-based criteria can be used to compare decisions over unbounded time-horizons: long-term average costs, discounted costs, and equivalent average costs. These costs can be determined using renewal theory, and depend on the distribution of the state of deterioration. The decision-making should choose that maintenance decision for which the expected costs are minimal. The approach can be applied in many fields of engineering to solve problems in life cycle costing and maintenance optimization. (Copyright (c) 1995 by Faculty of Technical Mathematics and Informatics, Delft, The Netherlands.)