Cost–benefit optimization for maintained structures by a renewal model

The paper develops objective functions for optimizing design and maintenance strategies of aging structural components. It introduces a repair model with or without preceding inspections. Objective functions are derived for maintenance by inspection and repairs (renewals). Earlier formulations for independent repair and failure events are extended to dependent no-repair/repair and failure events. This can make formulations more realistic because no-repair/repair and failure events depend on the same deterioration processes, at the expense of numerically more elaborate computations. In addition, finite renewal (repair) times independent of failure times are considered.