Risk-informed structural repair decision making for service life extension of aging naval ships

Abstract

Existing naval ships are often required to extend their service life due to budgetary constraints. This can incur significant costs associated with maintaining aged ships in operation. The risk of structural failure also rises during the extended service life if repairs are not performed. Repairing aging ships is often necessary in order to counteract the adverse impacts of aging and environmental stressors, such as corrosion and fatigue. Decision making on the repair of aging ships needs to balance the costs associated with repair and the risk associated with life extension. A framework for a synthesized life-cycle risk analysis integrating the aged ship's performance considering reliability, cost, and availability is presented. This framework reveals the implications of structural repair decisions in risk management of ships. It enables decision makers to choose optimal repair option with respect to different service life extension needs. The proposed framework is applied to a high speed naval vessel.