Extension of reliability centered maintenance methodology to risk-informed maintenance

This paper discusses a process that extends the classical Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) approach to Risk Informed Maintenance. The output is a set of preventive maintenance actions that correspond with the functional and hardware failure modes that are associated with potential harm to operations and maintenance personnel. Some of these failure modes can also lead to major equipment damage. The preventive maintenance actions are used in an informative manner by comparison with the existing preventive maintenance program. Changes are made after considering potential personnel harm, equipment damage, the facility downtime and related life-cycle costs. This Demonstration Study, which is presented in this paper, defines the process for extending the RCM analysis process to risk-informed analysis for a Refrigerated Air Turbine System. The Demonstration Study was initiated three years after completing the RCM effort at Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), Mulvihill (1998). The Demonstration Study was conducted by Risk Management and Analysis Inc, as an in-house research project. This Study has been completed up to, and including, the completion of the Master Logic Diagram (MLD) process and candidate initiating events (IEs) and pivotal events (PEs). The PEs are primarily mitigating features of the design.