Title: Reliability optimisation by genetic algorithm using stand-by components

Authors: Sayyed Faridoddin Afzali; Davood Rashtchian

Addresses: Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Azadi Avenue, Iran ' Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Azadi Avenue, Iran

Abstract: Application of stand-by components is amongst the methods developed to optimise the system reliability in different industries such as chemical and nuclear plants. In this work, genetic algorithm (GA) is developed and demonstrated to determine the optimal design configuration when there are multiple potential configurations available for each subsystem. The problem is to select at first best configuration and then suitable components in each configuration, for each subsystem to optimise the reliability and safety of system and satisfy constraints (cost, space limitation and mission time). We use GA in new method for solving redundancy (stand-by) allocation to each subsystem because we want to use from real configuration for subsystems. We introduce new function that is space limitation for managing store and stand-by components because of limited space for them to be in plant design and for preventing their deterioration in store during mission time.

Keywords: genetic algorithms; failure rate; available space; space limitation; reliability optimisation; stand-by components; system reliability; system safety; redundancy allocation; industrial plant design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2015.068203

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2015 Vol.19 No.3, pp.407 - 421

Received: 09 Jul 2013
Accepted: 07 Oct 2013
Published online: 24 Mar 2015 *

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