Method for assessment of transport means failures repairs

An analysis of experimental tests and a literature survey of the issue revealed that the problems connected with assessment of costs and effectiveness of transport means repairs has a significant influence on their operation efficiency. Operating factors affecting the elements of technical objects cause negative changes in their features resulting in failures. The failures are referred to as events which significantly impair the vehicle operation efficiency, safety and reliability. On the basis of experimental tests concerning times of failures occurrence, it was found that the set of failures can be divided into subsets of primary and secondary failures. The tests results revealed that the most frequent cause of secondary failures occurrence was improperly performed primary repairs. Primary failures are not related to each other and they appear randomly. However, secondary failures are related to each other as their occurrence is conditioned by the primary failure and results from an inappropriate performance of the successive secondary failure. Basing on an analysis of the author 's own tests results, it was established that failures of transport means used in real transport systems are the effect of impact of various forcing factors. Some failures result from the natural wear of machine elements, whereas, other failures can be caused by inappropriate repair of the previous damage. Thus, there occur the so called secondary failures in a short period of time. In connection with this, high efficiency of the repair performance is of primary importance as it largely affects efficiency of transport tasks accomplishment. In this article, there has been discussed a method developed for assessment of repair costs connected with elimination of secondary failures and its influence on the studied transport system operation efficiency. Familiarity with available technologies for repairs of primary failures as well as with costs of work and costs connected with technical equipment of the repair stations enables specification of the lowest costs necessary for reduction of the number of secondary failures and the average time of their repairs.