Control-limit preventive maintenance policies for components subject to imperfect preventive maintenance and variable operational conditions

This paper develops two component-level control-limit preventive maintenance (PM) policies for systems subject to the joint effect of partial recovery PM acts (imperfect PM acts) and variable operational conditions, and investigates the properties of the proposed policies. The extended proportional hazards model (EPHM) is used to model the system failure likelihood influenced by both factors. Several numerical experiments are conducted for policy property analysis, using real lifetime and operational condition data and typical characterization of imperfect PM acts and maintenance durations. The experimental results demonstrate the necessity of considering both factors when they do exist, characterize the joint effect of the two factors on the performance of an optimized PM policy, and explore the influence of the loading sequence of time-varying operational conditions on the performance of an optimized PM policy. The proposed policies extend the applicability of PM optimization techniques. & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.