Improved Reliability Models for Mechanical and Electrical Components at Navigation Lock and Dam and Flood Risk Management Facilities

Abstract

Abstract : This work developed the use of Expert-Opinion Elicitation (EOE) to help estimate the characteristic life (CL) of mechanical and electrical (ME) components at US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) navigation projects. This effort developed improved reliability models for the ME components at the USACE navigation facilities. Current USACE ME reliability methods use generic component failure rate data from US Department of Defense (DoD) Military Standard (MIL-STD) 756B, in which failure rate data is processed for components that function in operating environments, failure modes, and maintenance practices different from those at USACE navigation and flood risk management projects. The reliability of the ME system from this data set yields very conservative results, very often overestimating the time-dependent reliability of the entire ME system. EOE will be used to define the CL for a list of critical ME components at USACE navigation and flood risk management projects. These elicited values for CL will form the basis for failure rates to be used with the existing methods for ME system reliability calculations. Additional work on fault trees for ME systems is being completed as part of dam safety and levee risk assessment procedures development.