Availability Optimization of Redundancy Allocation Problem for a System with Repairable and Non-Repairable Components

Redundancy allocation problem (RAP) consists of two general classes, reliability optimization and availability optimization problems. In availability and reliability classes it is assumed that the entire components are repairable and non-repairable, respectively. In this paper a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) model is presented for modeling the problem of availability optimization of a system using repairable and non-repairable components, simultaneously. Also, it is shown that using different types of components in subsystems will increase the availability of the system. For solution of the proposed model, a genetic algorithm, as an efficient meta-heuristic algorithm, is developed and implemented. Furthermore, in order to indicate the efficiency of the proposed solution method, a numerical example for a system consisting of both repairable and non-repairable components is presented and solved. The results show a better performance for the proposed genetic algorithm compared to the Improved Particle Swarm Optimization (IPSO) algorithm that proposed at Literature review.