OPTIMIZATION OF TEST STRATEGIES - A GENERAL-APPROACH

A general approach to optimizing the test schedules of the standby sys tem is proposed. The system consists of interrelated component groups with different test intervals. Fault-tree analysis and Markov chains w ere used to estimate the unavailability of the system. In three partia l cases, the average unavailability of the system was calculated throu gh the average unavailability of its components. For a system where te sts were started randomly, the problem was reduced to a nonlinear prog ramming problem, for which the numerical technique (gradient methods) is proposed and tested with some examples. In the general case a techn ique to calculate the average unavailability is proposed, and the prob lem is reduced to a nonsmooth optimization problem.