Optimal Design Accounting for Reliability, Maintenance, and Warranty

Abstract

Reliability-based design (RBD) ensures high reliability with a reduced cost. Most of the RBD methodologies do not account for maintenance and warranty actions. As a result, the RBD result may not be truly optimal in terms of lifecycle reliability. This work attempts to integrate reliability, maintenance, and warranty during RBD. Three RBD models are built. The total cost of production, maintenance, and warranty are minimized. The computational procedures for solving the RBD models are developed. As demonstrated by two examples, the proposed RBD models meet not only the initial reliability requirement but also the maintenance and warranty requirements with reduced costs.