6 - Reliability Evaluation of Port and Shipyard Transportation Systems

Abstract

The multi-state asymptotic approach is applied to the reliability and risk characteristics evaluation of selected large transportation systems used in ports and shipyards. Reliability analysis of multi-state series, series–parallel and parallel–series transportation systems is based on corollaries formulated and proved in this chapter and corollaries given in the previous chapter. Corollaries are used to evaluate reliability characteristics of three transportation systems used at the Port of Gdynia and one operating at the Naval Shipyard of Gdynia. The port grain transportation system built of three-state non-homogeneous series–parallel subsystems, the port oil piping transportation system composed of three-state non-homogeneous series–parallel subsystems, the port bulk transportation system built of four-state non-homogeneous series–parallel and series subsystems and the shipyard rope transportation system that is a four-state homogeneous parallel–series system are considered. Multi-state reliability functions, mean values of sojourn times in the state subsets and their standard deviations, mean values of lifetimes in the particular states, risk functions, and exceeding moments of a permitted risk level are determined for these systems. The accuracy of the asymptotic approach to the reliability evaluation of these systems is also illustrated. System components reliability data and system operation processes data come from experts operating these systems, component technical certificates and obligatory norms. Reliability data by necessity are approximate and concerned only with the mean values of the system components’ sojourn times in the state subsets and hypothetical distributions of these lifetimes.