%0 Journal Article %T Durability of critical infrastructures %A Raluca Pascu %A Ramiro Sofronie %J Advances in Environmental Sciences %D 2011 %I Bioflux Society %X The paper deals with those infrastructures by which world society, under the pressure ofdemographic explosion, self-survives. The main threatening comes not from terrorist attacks, but fromthe great natural catastrophes and global climate change. It¡¯s not for the first time in history when suchmeasures of self-protection are built up. First objective of this paper is to present the background fordurability analysis. Then, with the aid of these mathematical tools the absolute durability of three linearmodels, typical for critical infrastructures, are successively calculated. In order to enhance the durabilityof critical infrastructures the solution based on redundancies is chosen. Five types of connection theredundancies for each of the three models are considered. Three topological schemes for connecting theredundancies are adopted: locally, by twining and globally. Absolute values of durability in all fifteenmodels with redundancies are further calculated. Then, the relative performances of enhanced durabilityin the same fifteen models, compared with the three original models, considered as references, areanalysed. The relative costs of the same fifteen models and in similar topologic conditions are furtheranalysed. By dividing the performance with cost the relative profitableness of each model is obtained.Finally, the three initial models, each reshaped with redundancies in three selective modes, arecompared from the perspective of their relative profitableness. The outcomes of this paper are original.They are of practical interests in planning the maintenance programs and checking the plausibility ofproposed interventions according to the clause 7.4 of ISO 13822:2001 %K cost %K performance %K profitableness %K reliability %K serviceability %U http://www.aes.bioflux.com.ro/docs/2011.3.167-186.pdf?AdobeSystemsPDFv17=05258042cf9a211345186c1009f50e495ea96fba|1317987867#PDFP