Evaluation of Reliability and Availability Characteristics of Two Different Systems Using Linear First Order Differential Equation

ABSTRACT

This study deals with the reliability and availability characteristics of two different systems, the second system differs from the first system due to the additional feature of preventive maintenance. Reliability and Availability analysis of system having one active unit and one warm standby unit with self-reset function and one maintenance facility. The failure unit is repaired through self-reset or maintenance according to different failure model.( Mean Time to System Failure), Steady- State Availability, Busy Period Analysis and Profit Function are derived for the two systems using linear first-order differential equations. Two systems were evaluated theoretically and graphically to observe the effect of preventive maintenance on systems performance. The result finally shows that increase in failure rate leads to decrease in MTSF, Steady-State Availability and Profit Function of figure 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3. It was also found that increase in repair rate leads to increase in MTSF, Steady- State Availability and Profit Function of figure 4.4, 4.5, and 4.6. Therefore, the result indicated that second system originates better reliability due to the additional feature of preventive maintenance.