Operation and Maintenance Cost of Water Management Systems: Analysis and Optimization

Abstract

The analysis and optimization of the operational and maintenance costs of water management systems is one of the key issues of their exploitation. This article presents a general model, supported by specially designed software, able to process the analysis of exploitation costs of multistate renewable systems. The proposed model allows for the consideration of costs related to preventive inspections and repairs and additional reliability associated costs, such as costs of the system in a state of deteriorated reliability and financial losses related to reduced serviceability of the system or a lack of rendering of services. By means of a multistate approach to the reliability analysis, the model allows for the determination of the level corresponding to the appropriate reliability state that, if exceeded, should result in undertaking the repair of the system. In this study, the MATLAB 9.13 (R2022b) environment was used for simulation and estimation of the costs of system maintenance and repairs according to the proposed model. The article presents the results of the optimization of exploitation and repair costs of water management systems, allowing the estimation of the optimal period between regular inspections while maintaining the safe operation of the system. The model and software proposed can be of assistance in supporting the decision process of maintenance planning for water management systems.