MAINTENANCE STRATEGY FOR SYSTEMS SUBJECTED TO DETERIORATION GOVERNED BY RANDOM SHOCKS

We examine the time-stationary availability of maintained systems that deteriorate according to a random-shock process. System failures are not self-announcing; hence, failures must be detected via inspection. Our approach considers randomly occurring shocks that cumulatively dam age the system; shock magnitudes are taken as random. We develop an ex pression for computing system availability when inspections follow a r enewal process. This expression leads to a proved proposition showing that, for any specified mean inspection rate, system availability is m aximized by choosing deterministic inter-inspection times.