Research on preventive maintenance strategies and systems for in-service ship equipment

With continuous improvements in the function and performance of ship equipment, mechanisms of failure have become more and more complicated. To avoid over-maintenance or under-maintenance in existing routine ship maintenance strategies, a ship-level method for repair decisions based on the preventive maintenance concept is proposed in this paper. First, the anticipated repair demand levels of key components are calculated using an improved failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) method; second, a Weibull distribution model is established, and the parameters are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to predict the characteristic life of the equipment; then, logical decision principles and rule-based reasoning (RBR) are used to determine the ship repair level and repair timing. Finally, the feasibility and application value of the proposed repair strategy were verified by case studies, and a ship-level system for repair decisions was established.