Risk-based approaches to ageing and maintenance management Original Research Article

This paper addresses the means of integrating probabilistic assessment (PRA) results into reliability centered maintenance (RCM). Several methods are discussed, including methods derived from a recent American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) report on Risk-Based Inspection and new methods which both identify items for maintenance attention and then calculate the revised risk. Ageing PRAʹs take into account the changing failure probability with time. Some examples of the application of these techniques to reactor systems are reviewed. Results from PRAʹs including ageing can also be used on their own to optimise certain aspects of maintenance. An example of optimising test intervals is described. This example indicates that potentially, there could be a considerable reduction in the frequency of testing of some items with no increase in risk.