AVAILABILITY ASSESSMENT BASED ON STOCHASTIC MAINTENANCE PROCESS MODELING

The operation of technical systems is a stochastic process based upon the equipment, equipment operation and maintenance, equipment preparation and repairs, and also the personnel carrying out repairs, as well as the regulations for operations. From the mathematical point of view, the operation of technical systems and equipment is a discrete state space stochastic process without after-effects, so it can be approximated with a Markov-chain. After setting up the transition probability matrix, matrix-algebraic tools can be used for investigating these processes with systems approach analysis. This paper is aimed to demonstrate the possibilities of the use of Markov matrix in case of stationary maintenance processes. In this paper a well-algorithmizable method developed by the author for mathematical modeling of stationary stochastic maintenance process is presented. The presented modeling method can be used for the assessment of availability, reliability and maintenance cost of a technical system.