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2015 | Buch

Engineering Asset Management - Systems, Professional Practices and Certification

Proceedings of the 8th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM 2013) & the 3rd International Conference on Utility Management & Safety (ICUMAS)

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Über dieses Buch

This proceeding represents state-of-the-art trends and developments in the emerging field of engineering asset management as presented at the Eight World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM). The Proceedings of the WCEAM 2013 is an excellent reference for practitioners, researchers and students in the multidisciplinary field of asset management, covering topics such as:

Asset condition monitoring and intelligent maintenance, 2. Asset data warehousing, data mining and fusion, 3. Asset performance and level-of-service models, 4. Design and life-cycle integrity of physical assets, 5. Deterioration and preservation models for assets, 6. Education and training in asset management, 7. Engineering standards in asset management, 8. Fault diagnosis and prognostics, 9. Financial analysis methods for physical assets, 10. Human dimensions in integrated asset management, 11. Information quality management, 12. Information systems and knowledge management, 13. Intelligent sensors and devices, 14. Maintenance strategies in asset management, 15. Optimisation decisions in asset management, 16. Risk management in asset management, 17. Strategic asset management, 18. Sustainability in asset management.

King WONG served as Congress Chair for WCEAM 2013 and ICUMAS 2013 is the President of the Hong Kong Institute of Utility Specialists (HKIUS) and Convener of International Institute of Utility Specialists (IIUS). Peter TSE is the Director of the Smart Engineering Asset Management laboratory (SEAM) at the City University of Hong Kong and served as the Chair of WCEAM 2013 Organising Committee. Joseph MATHEW served as the Co-Chair of WCEAM 2013 is also WCEAM’s General Chair. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Asset Institute, Australia.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
An Adaptive Alarm Method for Tool Condition Monitoring Based on Probability Density Functions Estimated with the Parzen Window

Tool condition monitoring plays an important role in modern automatic processing for ensuring the processing quality and the machine life [

1

].

Xiaoguang Chen, Guanghua Xu, Fei Liu, Xiang Wan, Qing Zhang, Sicong Zhang
Fault Degradation State Recognition for Planetary Gear Set Based on LVQ Neural Network

In order to ensure the safety and reliable operation of equipment, reduce accidents and economic loss caused by the mechanical fault or failure, prediction and health management (PHM) technology has attracted more and more attention. As the basis and starting point of fault prediction, degradation state recognition is one of the key steps of PHM, which directly affect the reliability of the equipment failure prediction and the selection of corresponding maintenance strategy. As to the degradation state recognition problem of planetary gear set, firstly, select the proper prognosis feature by evaluating various time-frequency features. Secondly, utilize the learning vector quantization neural network to recognize degradation state of planetary gear set. Finally, validate the effectively of presented method with pre-planted chipped fault experiment of planetary gear set. The results show that the proposed algorithm recognizes the multi-level degradation state effectively, and provide a useful reference for subsequent fault prediction.

Bin Fan, Niaoqing Hu, Zhe Cheng
A Support System for Selecting the Most Suitable Spare Parts Strategy

This paper reports an algorithm to create a decision support system for the most suitable spare parts strategy. It is developed based on risk and cost analysis. The algorithm decision support system makers includes information about the possible scenarios in the maintenance field; moreover, this information is useful to support future strategies, helping to decide the number of the spare parts necessary to increase at the maximum process/equipment availability rate. In this task, the algorithm is based on risk analysis considering two main aspects. The first, related to success and failure probabilities is estimated through Poisson distribution; the second one is related to the expected total cost, considering: storage costs, capital tie-up costs, repair costs, purchase order costs (normal and emergency), opportunity costs, and others.

Pablo Viveros, Christopher Nikulin, Adolfo Crespo, René Tapia, Raúl Stegmaier, Edward Johns, Fredy Kristjanpoller
A Fusion Approach with Application to Oil Sand Pump Prognostics

In industrial field, slurry pumps are widely used to transport mixtures of abrasive solids and liquid in wet mineral processing operations. As working under adverse environment, the performances of slurry pumps are often degraded or the pump system even fails unexpectedly. Therefore, significant resources are invested in programs maintenance to avoid unscheduled downtimes and ensure that the required performance of system is maintained at the maximum efficiency. This work is developed from a particular need in oil-mining industry to monitor the health of slurry pumps. In this study, relevance vector machines (RVM) are utilized to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of field impellers combined with two-summed exponential function. To solve the non-stationary problem emerged in the data, a novel feature extracting process is designed. Finally, one field dataset is applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed prognosis model. The application result shows good performance on degradation trend and remaining useful life prediction of the pump impellers. Hence the model can well solve the problem when to replace the related components before they area absolutely out of service to avoid the sudden downtime.

Peter W. Tse, Jinfei Hu
Diagnosis of Air-Conditioner by Using Its Dynamic Property

To avoid failures of an air-conditioner, we need suitable condition monitoring technique. Unfortunately, an air-conditioner has many parameters in it, i.e., inlet temperature, outlet temperature of a condenser or an evaporator, pressure of each component and input power for a compressor and so on. Furthermore, it is very difficult to identify failures in an air-conditioner because of small difference of parameters between normal and abnormal condition. In this paper, we proposed diagnosis technique by using support vector machine (SVM) with identified system parameters by ARX model. Because dynamic property of an air-conditioner identified by ARX model did not depend on operation condition, i.e., room temperature, outside temperature, our proposed technique did not need a lot of data. Finally, our proposed technique well identified the clogging in heat exchanger very well.

Tadao Kawai, Seiya Kushizaki
Fault Detection and Remaining Useful Life Estimation Using Switching Kalman Filters

The use of condition monitoring (CM) data in degradation modeling for fault detection and remaining useful life (RUL) estimation have been growing with increasing use of health and usage monitoring systems. Most degradation modeling methods requires fault detection thresholds to be established. When the CM measure exceeds the detection threshold, RUL prediction is then performed using a time-invariant dynamical model to represent the degradation path to the failure threshold. Such approaches have some limitations as detection thresholds can vary widely between individual units and a single dynamical model may not adequately describe a degradation path that evolves from slow to accelerated wear. As such, most degradation modeling studies only focuses on segments of their CM data that behaves close to the assumed dynamical model. In this paper, the use of Switching Kalman Filters (SKF) is explored for both fault detection and remaining useful life prediction under a single framework. The SKF uses multiple dynamical models describing different degradation processes from which the most probable model is inferred using Bayesian estimation. The most probable model is then used for accurate prediction of RUL. The proposed SKF approach is demonstrated to track different evolving degradation path using simulated data. It is also applied onto a gearbox bearing dataset from the AH64D helicopter to illustrate its application in a practice.

Reuben Lim, David Mba
A Novel Integrated Sensor for Stress Measurement in Steel Strand Based on Elastomagnetic and Magnetostrictive Effect

The deteriorating state of steel strands can be assessed using information of its overall and local stress level. An integrated sensor, which is based on magnetostrictive and elastomagnetic effect, is proposed for stress measurement of seven-wire steel strands. This integrated sensor can alternatively measure the stress level of seven-wire steel strands through guided wave-based technique and elastomagnetic method. When it works as magnetostirctive sensor to generate longitudinal guided wave in strand, the missing frequency band occurred in received wave signal is investigated in a pre-tensioned strand. It is found that the missing band central frequency increases linearly as the value of natural logarithm of overall stress increases. The integrated sensor can be applied to measure local stress in a strand based on elastomagnetic effect. The output signal amplitude of the sensor has linear relationship with strand stress level and stress increment of less than 10 MPa can be identified. The characteristic functions for both local and overall stress measurement are pre-calibrated experimentally. The proposed integrated sensor has great potential for applications of steel strands stress measurement.

Xiucheng Liu, Bin Wu, Cunfu He
Cavitation Sensitivity Parameter Analysis for Centrifugal Pumps Based on Spectral Methods

Cavitation is a major problem facing centrifugal pumps in industry today. Unable to constantly maintain operating conditions around the best efficiency point, centrifugal pumps are subject to conditions that may lead to vaporisation or flashing in the pipes upstream of the pump. The implosion of these vapour bubbles in the impeller or volute causes damaging effects to the pump. A new method of cavitation detection is proposed in this paper based on spectral methods. Data used to determine parameters were obtained under ideal conditions, while the method was tested using industry acquired data. Results were compared to knowledge known about the state of the pump, and the classification of the pump according to ISO 10816.

Kristoffer K. McKee, Gareth Forbes, Ilyas Mazhar, Rodney Entwistle, Melinda Hodkiewicz, Ian Howard
Remaining Useful Life Estimation of Slurry Pumps Using the Health Status Probability Estimation Provided by Support Vector Machine

The slurry pump is one of the most important machines and widely applied in oil sand industries, mining, waste treatment, etc. The mixtures transported by the pumps include the solids as well as the liquids with different volume and hardness that make the pumps work under abrasive and erosive environment. This would cause the continuous wear of the components, especially the impeller, in the pumps. As a result, the efficiency and useful life will be greatly reduced. Every unexpected failure of slurry pumps could cost companies high up to millions of dollars. To avoid this problem, traditional scheduled maintenance strategies are usually adopted but it can not warn the impending failure and sometimes the components are replaced when they are still in healthy status. Consequently, effective condition monitoring and online health status assessment methods are of great significance and should be developed to conduct timely and effective slurry pump fault diagnosis and prognosis. In this paper, an effective data driven technique for estimating the remaining useful life of slurry pumps are developed based on the health status probability estimation obtained by Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The signals collected by the sensors installed on an industrial slurry pump are used for analysis. The results show that frequency band selection and the position of sensors have some effect on the useful information acquisition and that SVM has superior performance in industrial data processing.

Peter W. Tse, Changqing Shen
Bearing Defect Diagnosis by Stochastic Resonance Based on Woods-Saxon Potential

The interference from background noise makes it difficult to identify the incipient bearing defect via vibration analysis. Stochastic resonance (SR) is a nonlinear phenomenon which is characterized by that the output signal can be enhanced with the assistance of the proper noise. The Large Parameter Bistable SR (LPBSR) method is commonly used in the bearing fault diagnosis. However, the LPBSR method requires signal tuning to satisfy the small parameter requirement (both amplitude and frequency are far less than 1), which implies the inherent structure of the input signal is modified and the effect of SR may be further affected. Additionally, a barrier exists in the bistable model, which indicates that the particle motion in the bistable potential is unstable and then the external noises induced by the unstable motion are introduced in the output signal. This chapter proposes a new strategy to realize bearing defect diagnosis, that is, a Woods-Saxon potential instead of a conventional bistable potential is utilized to achieve SR and to enhance the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In the proposed method, the output SNR can be optimized just by tuning the parameters of the Woods-Saxon potential. This method overcomes the limitation of the small parameter requirement of the classical bistable SR, and can thus detect a high driving frequency. Furthermore, the smooth Woods-Saxon potential leads to a more stable particle motion compared to the bistable potential, which provides a more regular output waveform and reduces the unexpected noises at the same time. The proposed method has yielded more effective results than the traditional methods, which was verified by means of a practical bearing vibration signal carrying defect information.

Siliang Lu, Qingbo He, Fanrang Kong
Experimental Investigation on Suppressing Fluid-Induced Vibration in the Seal Clearance by Anti-swirl Flow

The fluid-induced vibration caused by rotor eccentricity would increase the rotor vibration in the hydroelectric generating set, which would affect the security of rotating machines. The experiment rig is manufactured based on the simplified seal model. The influence of water pumping, water injection and gas injection to fluid-induced vibration in the seal clearance caused by rotor eccentricity is investigated by model experiment. The vibration amplitudes of the rotor with water pumping, water injection and gas injection at different positions and flows are contrasted. The result shows that the fluid-induced vibration in the seal clearance can be suppressed by the anti-swirl flow which has the right position and flow. And the best position and flow of the anti-swirl flow are found. It provides effective experimental basis for using anti-swirl flow technique to suppress the fluid-induced vibration in engineering applications.

Chenglong Lv, Lidong He, Guo Chen, Peng Hu, Bingkang Zhang, Jinji Gao
A New Optimization Method for ECT Sensor Design

A new parameters optimization method of ECT sensor based on the orthogonal experimental design is presented. The sensor structure and sensor model are proposed. The evaluation criteria for sensor performance are introduced. The uniformity index of empty pipe and half pipe filled with engine oil are set as the optimization objectives. The experiments are set up based on multi-index orthogonal design. The optimizing parameters of the sensor structure include the number of electrodes, electrode width (corresponding to central angel) and radius of pipe wall. The typical sensitivity maps of the optimized sensor are presented at last. The experimental results indicate that the method can derive an evenly distributed sensitivity field. Compared with the full collocation method, the numbers of experiments is reduced by 66 %.

Nan Li, X. D. Yang
An Adaptive Doppler Effect Reduction Algorithm for Wayside Acoustic Defective Bearing Detector System

In the wayside Acoustic Defective Bearing Detector (ADBD) system, because of the high moving speed of the railway vehicle, the recorded acoustic signal will be severely distorted by the Doppler effect, which is a barrier that would badly reduce the effectiveness of online defect detection. This paper proposes an adaptive Doppler effect reduction algorithm for the ADBD system. In this algorithm, firstly, the narrow-band signal is got by the band-pass filter after the sensitive frequency band selection; Secondly, the parameters of the Doppler kinematic model are estimated by maximizing the Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the narrow-band signal and the Doppler atom; Finally, the Doppler-shifted signal is restored by the resampling method. The effectiveness of this method is verified by means of simulation studies and applications to diagnosis of train roller bearing defects.

Fang Liu, Changqing Shen, Ao Zhang, Fanrang Kong, Yongbin Liu
Lamb Waves Inspection by Using Chirp Signal and Mode Purification

Ultrasonic Lamb wave inspection is one of nondestructive testing approaches, and it has many advantages including large-area, omnidirectional, fast inspection. In common, narrow-band frequency sinusoidal tone burst signal modulated by window function is used to excite guided waves in waveguides for mode control and tuning. For obtaining the signals at different frequencies, guided wave inspection will need to be repeated many times. As an alternative of narrow-band guided waves excitation, a broadband chirp signal is used for excitation signal and the received signal is post-processed to obtain any one single frequency tone burst signal which frequency range is located in the frequency bandwidth. This approach greatly increases guided waves inspection efficiency and ensures the consistencies. As the receivers, two PZT elements are supposed to be attached on both sides of a PMMA plate in the same location. The received signals from two PZT elements are summed to obtain single S

0

mode, and are subtracted to obtain single A

0

mode achieving mode purification of Lamb waves. Ultrasonic Lamb wave technology is applied to inspect the plate-like structures using chirp signal and mode purification. This method is more efficient and accurate to obtain data and much easier to identify, interpret and extract the information of the defects.

Zenghua Liu, Yingzan Xu, Cunfu He, Bin Wu
Performance Degradation Assessment of Slurry Pumps

Slurry pumps are widely used in oil sand pumping operations to enhance the potential and kinetic energy of liquid and solid mixtures and pump the mixtures from one place to another place. The rotating impellers of slurry pumps operate continuously and they are unavoidably abraded and eroded by the transferring liquids and solids. Therefore, impeller wear is one of the major causes for slurry pump breakdown. In order to ensure the high reliability of the use of impellers and prevent the occurrence of impeller failures, the performance degradation assessment of impellers is necessary to be investigated. In this paper, a moving-average mean wear degradation index and a moving-average deviation wear degradation index are proposed to track the health condition of the impellers used in oil sand pumps. The influence of different parameters on the performance degradation assessment is discussed. The vibration signals collected from an industrial oil sand pump are used to validate the proposed impeller heath indicators. The results show that the proposed health indicators are effective in describing the impeller health state evolution.

Peter W. Tse, Dong Wang
Application of Maximum Correlated Kurtosis Deconvolution on Rolling Element Bearing Fault Diagnosis

Maximum correlated kurtosis deconvolution (MCKD) searches for an optimal set of filter coefficients to enhance the periodic impulses by introducing correlation to kurtosis. This method can realize the feature extraction and the diagnosis of rolling element bearing’s faults by improving signal to noise ratio (SNR) of signal. In order to obtain a better result, how to select the important parameters of MCKD is discussed in this chapter. After selecting proper parameters, this method is applied to both simulated and experimental data. The result of simulated data shows that this method has potentials in fault diagnosis of rolling element bearing. The experimental data from an accelerated life test of rolling element bearing are used for validation, which shows that this method can successfully detect the incipient fault.

Haitao Zhou, Jin Chen, Guangming Dong
The Role of Life Cycle Cost in Engineering Asset Management

This paper presents a case study demonstrating life cycle cost (LCC) analysis as a major and critical activity of engineering asset management decisions and control. The objective is to develop a maintenance policy to control the economics of replacement and repair practice of refractory lining of an electric arc furnace (EAF). The replacement and repair policies involve the optimum life policy, the repair versus replacement policies, the repair limit method and the comparison of lining material types from different suppliers. The developed models provide a method for defining the most important factors involved in decision making with respect to operational and managerial levels. The approach also involves deciding the remaining age value as the repair limit criteria while avoid lining failure due to unavoidable deterioration caused by variation in operation conditions. The decision criteria are established as: (a) what type of lining material is better to use? (b) When to replace lining in a cyclic manner? (c) At what sequence is hot repair required and (d) whether to replace or use cold repair between replacements. Finally, the model output values for the decision criteria are presented in tables and graphs to guide decision making in operation and maintenance.

Khaled El-Akruti, Richard Dwight, Tieling Zhang, Mujbil Al-Marsumi
Cost Optimisation of Maintenance in Large Organizations

Large organizations routinely deploy extensive computerised systems for work management control, thereby collating databases of work order information which may be of variable quality. It is possible to analyse these data sets, taking into account issues with codification and gaps in individual work order completeness, to determine trends in work management, PM strategies, failure modes in critical plant and overall expenditure. Cost optimisation of maintenance involves three steps. The first is to understand the raw data and determine trends in what is driving the expenditure and which parts of the asset base require the most investment. The second is a codification system for the data to enable searching for possible savings across large fleets of assets. The third is to implement a search routine for savings and then apply it, to develop a credible budget savings strategy. The areas of improvement which need to be considered include work management with improvement in the planning of work so that simple or temporary fixes are replaced by well-considered and executed repairs. Secondly there is a need to improve the PM strategy so that reactive approaches to specific assets at various facilities are lifted to a more proactive approach. Both of these cases relate to addressing the issue that poor maintenance equates to high levels of work orders on assets which otherwise should not require this intensity of work resulting in wasted effort and increased cost of maintenance. In order to determine which assets have high cost levels, an internal benchmarking process can be applied to large organisations. This is implemented by comparing the maintenance of specific asset types in different facilities throughout the organisation and identifying those which have above average levels of maintenance. Results to date have shown that a credible level of overall maintenance savings may be claimed by simply identifying asset areas which are receiving too much work and then proposing improvement work to address these high rates.

Robin A. Platfoot
Multi-scale Manifold for Machinery Fault Diagnosis

The wavelet transform has been widely used in the field of machinery fault diagnosis for its merit in flexible time-frequency resolution. This chapter focuses on wavelet enveloping, and proposes an enhanced envelope demodulation method, called multi-scale manifold (MSM), for machinery fault diagnosis. The MSM addresses manifold learning on the high-dimensional wavelet envelopes at multiple scales. Specifically, the proposed method is conducted by three following steps. First, the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) with complex Morlet wavelet base is introduced to obtain the non-stationary information of the measured signal in time-scale domain. Second, a scale band of interest is selected to include the fault impulse envelope information of measured signal. Third, the manifold learning algorithm is conducted on the wavelet envelopes at selected scales to extract the intrinsic manifold of fault-related impulses. The MSM combines the envelope information of measured signal at multiple scales in a nonlinear approach, and may thus preserve the factual impulses of machinery fault. The new method is especially suited for detecting the fault characteristic frequency of rotating machinery, which is verified by means of a simulation study and a case of practical gearbox fault diagnosis in this chapter.

Jun Wang, Qingbo He, Fanrang Kong
Human Computer Interface (HCI) for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS): The Role of Human and Context

This paper deals with advanced computational techniques for taking account the human factors in Intelligent Manufacture Systems. A Cyber-Physical Systems (or CPS) is a system that combines and coordinates physical and computational elements. The CPS incorporates the ability to act in the physical world with the intelligence of cyber world to add new features to real-world physical systems [

1

]. Among the various fields of activity of the CPS, can cite security systems, robotics, education, among others. Industrial environments are characterized by being favorable places for the introduction of technologies aimed to facilitate the interaction/mediation between human and machines. In this paper, we propose to use CPS for taking account human factors in Maintenance Estrategies. The proposal, called TOOGLE-IMS, aims at developing a Human Computer Interface (HCI) for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS).

Nelson Duarte Filho, Silvia Botelho, Marcos Bichet, Rafael Penna dos Santos, Greyce Schroeder, Ricardo Nagel, Danúbia Espíndola, Carlos Eduardo Pereira
Using the Alliance Form for Operation and Maintenance of Privatized Infrastructures

A significant number of privatizations utilized to operate and maintain critical networked infrastructures have failed to meet contractual expectations and the expectations of the community. The author carried out empirical research exploring four urban water systems. This research revealed that of the four forms of privatization the alliance form was particularly suited to the stewardship of an urban water system. The question then is whether these findings from urban water can be generalised to O&M of infrastructure generally. The answer is increasingly important as governments seek financial sustainability through reapplying the contestability strategy and outsource and privatise further services and activities. This chapter first examines the issues encountered with O&M privatisations. Second the findings as to the stewardship achieved by the four case study water systems are unpacked with particular focus upon the alliance form. Third the key variables which were found to have distinct causal links to the stewardship-like behaviour of the private participants in the Alliance case study are described. Fourth the variables which may be crucial to the successful application of the alliance form to the broader range of infrastructures are separated out. Fifth this chapter then sets the path for research into these crucial features of the alliance form.

David Mills
A Resources Provision Policy for Multi-unit Maintenance Program

A model for resource provision policy in multi-unit maintenance program is developed. The model is based on integrated System Dynamics modelling methodology. First, a scheme is developed to formulate and evaluate policies regarding the provision under uncertain condition or resource requirement in a period of planning to result in minimum maintenance cost. The scheme then is transformed into the suggested research model. In the modelling process, emphasis is placed on resourcing strategy for maintenance involving human and procurement of spares and any other materials. The model is composed of three sub-models that interact based on causal loop modelling between variables. The human resource sub-model focuses on policies related to provision and management. The procurement sub-model takes into account all critical spare parts, tools and equipments, and any other supporting material. The interaction between variables with sub-models is then evolved into a multi-unit maintenance resource provision model. The developed system dynamics model has been verified using data from a case study. Due to data availability, the verification has encloses only the relation between maintenance and human resources but further application on wide range of resources through case studies is intended. The advantage of this model is related to its wide outlook of interrelated variables of a complex multi-unit maintenance system. This model can show the impact of one decision in a certain maintenance resourcing system on the other maintenance resourcing system and will lead to an optimum policy for maintenance resource provision system.

Winda Nur Cahyo, Khaled El-Akruti, Richard Dwight, Tieling Zhang
Making Optimal and Justifiable Asset Maintenance Decisions

Maintenance decisions for large-scale asset systems are often beyond an asset manager’s capacity to handle. The presence of a number of possibly conflicting decision criteria, the large number of possible maintenance policies, and the reality of budget constraints often produce complex problems, where the underlying trade-offs are not apparent to the asset manager. This chapter presents the decision support tool Justification and Optimisation of Budgets (JOB), which has been designed to help asset managers of large systems assess, select, interpret and optimise the effects of their maintenance policies in the presence of limited budgets. This decision support capability is realized through an efficient, scalable backtracking-based algorithm for the optimisation of maintenance policies, while enabling the user to view a number of solutions near this optimum and explore trade-offs with other decision criteria. To assist the asset manager in selecting between various policies, JOB also provides the capability of Multiple Criteria Decision Making. In this chapter, the JOB tool is presented and a real-world case study on a power plant system demonstrates JOB’s capability to significantly improve the decision making process.

Andrei Furda, Michael E. Cholette, Lin Ma, Colin Fidge, Wayne Hill, Warwick Robinson
Assessment of Insulated Piping System Inspection Using Logistic Regression

Corrosion under insulation (CUI) is a common problem not only in chemical process plants but also in utility and power plants. According to empirical study, CUI is mainly driven by the operating temperature where CUI is more susceptible when the equipment or piping system is operating between −12 and 121 °C. Other factors such as insulation type and equipment or pipe location are also seen to be the contributing factors to CUI. However, to date, it is not clear which factors are more important in contributing to CUI occurrence. This paper presents a methodology for predicting the likelihood of CUI occurrence for insulated piping system using a logistic regression model. Logistic regression, a special case of linear regression, requires binary data and assumes a Bernoulli distribution. Using historical data, the variables of operating time in year, pipe operating temperature, type of insulation and pipe size are modelled as factors contributing to CUI. The outcome of this model does not produce the probability of failure to be used in quantitative risk-based inspection (RBI) analysis. However, the result rather uses the historical inspection data to provide the decision makers with a means of evaluating which pipe to be inspected for future planning of scheduled inspection, based on the likelihood of CUI occurrence.

Ainul Akmar Mokhtar, Nooratikah Saari, Mokhtar Che Ismail
Continuous Life Cycle Cost Model for Repairable System

Traditionally, the estimation of maintenance cost of a repairable system was evaluated using discrete approach based on estimated number of system failure, cost of repair as well as the interest rates. As maintenance cost represents a significant portion of overall life cycle cost (LCC), accurate estimation of maintenance cost would influence LCC analysis. However, in actuality the failure of the repairable system occurs in a continuous probabilistic manner thus the assumption of discrete occurrence is rather inaccurate. This paper presents an alternative continuous LCC model to better represent the actual operating phenomena of repairable system. The model was established based on the widely used Weibull distribution probability density function and continuous combined interest method. The result of the developed LCC model was then validated using Monte Carlo method. The result indicates that the continuous LCC model is able to accurately estimate LCC for any given time that can be useful in decision making based on life cycle cost.

Masdi Muhammad, Meseret Nasir, Ainul Akmar Mokhtar, Hilmi Hussin
Research on Sequencing Optimization of Military Aircraft Turnaround Activities Based on Genetic Algorithm

Turnaround is a series of effective activities, which are prepared in order to turn out immediately next time after the last turn out according to the scheduled preparation project, turnaround time is one of the most important major parameter which can measure and judge the war power of the military aircraft [

1

]. In order to shorten the turnaround time, enhance the availability of the logistics resources, and reduce the vacancy rate of the support equipment and support personnel, in this paper, it applies activity route optimization algorithm of Genetic Algorithm (GA) in this article to analyze and research that turnaround activities of one particular type of task of military aircraft [

2

]. At first, these certain turnaround activities will be divided into several activity characteristic elements, then make sure the priority ordering of the activity characteristic elements according to the all kinds of containment relationships between all two characteristic elements, after that set up optimized objective function, and on this basis, set up fitness function. Then, utilize crossover operator to change the sequence of the logistic activities, and use the mutation operator to figure out the scale of logistical resource, get a optimized activity planning scheme for the turnaround activities. Finally, through an example verify the sequencing optimization method’s feasibility and effectiveness [

3

].

Boping Xiao, Shuli Ma, Haiping Huang, Aoqing Wang
Business Intelligence and Service Oriented Architecture—Improving IT Investments

Information Technology does not solve business problems. Rather, IT can be used as an enabler to meet goals, targets and position the organization in the minds of the customer. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can enable higher level services from more primitive business processes. The result is a flexible, agile organization. However, in some cases, without a business model, an SOA can be implemented but the result is islands of incompatible services. In the era of data analytics, the evolution of business intelligence has assumed a more dominant role. Proponents argue that Business Intelligence subsumes SOA. Other practitioners argue that Business Intelligence (BI) and SOA are distinct from each other as each aims to deliver different perspectives to an organization. This chapter challenges this view by developing a framework where both SOA and BI are pivotal to delivering the business model. The analytics, business intelligence and data mining handshake with the SOA, allowing decision makers to plan, coordinate and control resources to meet the goals, targets and performance measures set for the organization. Business Intelligence and SOA need not operate on different levels for an organisation. In an era where companies are trying to go from barely surviving IT expenses towards developing an IT portfolio, the more options for technologies supporting asset data management, warehousing and mining to interact and co-exist are necessary. Putting aside arguments of Business Intelligence versus SOA, we propose that they can handshake and bring out the collaborative synergies to enable organizational decision making to address the competitive challenges in today’s global marketplace.

Indira Venkatraman, Paul T. Shantapriyan
Effective Guided Wave Technique for Performing Non-destructive Inspection on Steel Wire Ropes that Hoist Elevators

The steel wire ropes that hoist elevators will eventually become rusted and then cracked as they always expose to air that contains high salinity content. A number of rope broken accidents occurred because of inappropriate maintenance that causes the ignorance of broken wires in a steel rope. Elevator ropes have very complicated structure as they are formed by twisted many small wires together to form a bigger rope. Such complicated structure creates difficulty to currently available non-destructive evaluation methods. To avoid the accidents, proper maintenance equipped with effective non-destructive testing method that must be presented. However, as of today, most of the elevator rope inspections are depends on human visual inspection. Such inspection fails to detect faults occurred in internal wires and even external wires due to the covering of grease on the ropes. The aim of this study is to introduce a new and effective technique based on ultrasonic guided waves for inspecting the faults occurred in internal and external wires. The experimental results demonstrate that the ultrasonic guided wave can detect the locations of broken wires and then determine the number of broken wires effectively. The experimental results also show that the PZT sensor is more suitable for working as a transmitter/emitter and the MsS is better working as a receiver. For grease covered ropes, the results show that the range of inspection distance will be decreased due to the attenuation of the reflected signal energy. Nonetheless, the reflected signal caused by the defects can still be clearly observed even the rope was covered by grease. Although the current results are promising, more sophisticated method must be developed so that the proposed technique can be applied to on-site ropes tests. The future research may include the development of optimizing the operation parameters of guided wave and the design of practical sensor for operating ropes.

Peter W. Tse, J. M. Chen
Classifying Data Quality Problems in Asset Management

Making sound asset management decisions, such as whether to replace or maintain an ageing underground water pipe, are critical to ensure that organisations maximise the performance of their assets. These decisions are only as good as the data that supports them, and hence many asset management organisations are in desperate need to improve the quality of their data. This chapter reviews the key academic research on data quality (DQ) and Information Quality (IQ) (used interchangeably in this chapter) in asset management, combines this with the current DQ problems faced by asset management organisations in various business sectors, and presents a classification of the most important DQ problems that need to be tackled by asset management organisations. In this research, eleven semi-structured interviews were carried out with asset management professionals in a range of business sectors in the UK. The problems described in the academic literature were cross checked against the problems found in industry. In order to support asset management professionals in solving these problems, we categorised them into seven different DQ dimensions, used in the academic literature, so that it is clear how these problems fit within the standard frameworks for assessing and improving data quality. Asset management professionals can therefore now use these frameworks to underpin their DQ improvement initiatives while focussing on the most critical DQ problems.

Philip Woodall, Jing Gao, Ajith Parlikad, Andy Koronios
Asset Data Quality—A Case Study on Mobile Mining Assets

Good asset management decisions involve balancing cost, risk and performance requirements. Raw data on maintenance costs (a major contributor to total costs) and for estimating risks associated with asset failure is stored in an organisation’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. However as this chapter demonstrates asset data is often erroneous, lacking requisite detail and therefore not fit for decision support. This chapter describes a project to clean data stored in computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) that form part of ERPs. It looks in detail at the cleaning process, identifying key issues and developing of a set of recommendations for improvement. The major issues identified are to do with poor practice in assigning work to appropriate subsystems and maintainable items, ineffective use of standard text to describe work, inconsistent use of codes describing the type of work, and inability to identify suspensions and actual asset usage hours from the stored data. While focussing on asset data from mobile mining assets, the problems identified are similar in other sectors. Despite these issues, much of the required information is available once the data has been cleaned and forms a resource for the mining industry to assess how asset reliability and costs are changing with the introduction of new developments such as autonomous mobile equipment.

M. Ho, M. R. Hodkiewicz, C. F. Pun, J. Petchey, Z. Li
The Application of Works Programme Management
Eight World Congress Engineering Asset Management Conference Paper 2013

Successful Works Programme Management (WPM) improves return on investment. Achieving successful works programme management is a challenge. It requires the right understanding of how to achieve the desired business outcomes. One size does not fit all, but instead the programme must be tailored to fit each specific time and place. The purpose of this chapter is to show how WEL Networks Ltd (WEL), as an electricity distribution utility, successfully implemented its WPM. WPM follows the model of; plan, do, act and check. This chapter covers the effective development of a 10 year asset management plan, and the selection of the best delivery model for effective and efficient delivery of the approved works programme. The chapter critically analyses work management models. In particular it identifies the benefits claimed for a WPM and some of the reported difficulties with implementation. It then considers the historical situation within WEL and shows how some of the reported problems were to be found within the WEL’s history. It details the steps that WEL has taken in developing and implementing the WPM. It discusses the objectives and critical success factors in the implementation of WPM. The mechanisms for determining the effectiveness of the WPM implementation are described. The chapter concludes with lessons learned of how the WPM has been successfully applied to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the development and delivery of the annual works programme in relation to the approved 10 year Asset Management Plan.

Huazhuo Lin (Ling), Roger Oed
A Performance Degradation Interval Prediction Method Based on Support Vector Machine and Fuzzy Information Granulation

To predict the trend and interval of the product performance degradation, a combination approach of fuzzy information granulation (FIG) and support vector machine (SVM) is proposed. Firstly, to make interval prediction of performance degradation and reduce prediction error, the monitoring performance degradation data is divided into several segments in accordance with the actual needs, and the fuzzy information granulation method is used to describe the information of each data segment by the concept of information granule. Then, the support vector machine is applied in the modelling of the fuzzy information granules data. Finally, the proposed FIG–SVM method is applied in degradation assessment of a microwave product, and the result shows that the method is feasible and is effective in improving the modelling precision.

Fuqiang Sun, Xiaoyang Li, Tongmin Jiang
Maintenance Solutions for Cost-Effective Production: A Case Study in a Paper Mill

For companies, in order to stay competitive, it is necessary to continuously increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their production processes. Therefore the purpose of this chapter is to discuss the role of maintenance in achieving the competitive advantages using cost-effectiveness aspect of maintenance process. In this regard, the chapter illustrates/discusses the impact of mechanical and electrical failures on company’s business on an example of a paper mill where processes are running 24/7. Thus, this paper presents the role of vibration-based maintenance (VBM) in enhancing the production and maintenance performance continuously and cost-effectively. Using empirical data collected from a paper mill case study, we found that company could avoid the profit losses even to a greater extent if it would improve the effectiveness of the VBM. With respect to the electrical causes of failures, a live working technique for improving the reliability and availability of the paper machine is proposed. Therefore, maintenance solution concerning the paper machine is suggested and discussed as well as potential benefits are highlighted. The results supported the notion that there is a positive association between the reduction of the unplanned stoppages and potential savings. The results have also shown that there is a need for more systematic approach, and a more holistic view of the maintenance function for establishing and running a cost-effective maintenance policy in the paper mill under consideration.

Damjan Maletič, Viktor Lovrenčič, Matjaž Maletič, Basim Al-Najjar, Boštjan Gomišček
A Joint Predictive Maintenance and Inventory Policy

New maintenance policies like condition monitoring and prognostics are developed to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of components. However, decision making based on these predictions is still an underexplored area of maintenance management. Furthermore, maintenance relies on the availability of spare parts for replacement in order to reduce failure downtime and costs. Accurate predictions of component failure times can be used to improve both maintenance and inventory decisions. During the past decades, several joint maintenance and inventory optimization systems have been studied in literature. Compared to the separate optimization of both models, these publications reported a remarkable improvement on total cost due to joint optimization. However, the inclusion of RUL in joint maintenance and inventory models for multi-component systems has not been considered before. The objective of this chapter is to quantify the added value of predictive information (RUL) in joint maintenance and inventory decision making for multi-component systems considering different levels of inter-component dependence (i.e. economic, structural and stochastic). A dynamic predictive maintenance policy is developed, which optimizes both maintenance and inventory parameters while minimizing the long-term average maintenance and inventory cost per unit time.

Adriaan Van Horenbeek, Liliane Pintelon
Proposal of a Quality Index Applied to Fault Detection Method in Electrical Valves

In modern Intelligent Maintenance Systems, the machine or equipment robustness also depends on its capability to automatically generate reliability and safety reports. This paper describes an approach to autonomously identify if a faulty signal report has been correctly classified. The proposed approach builds on our previous experience in developing embedded intelligent maintenance systems and helps in avoiding the occurrence of “false positive” interpretations, which means, when the maintenance system indicates a possible fault that does not occur. This index would be useful for real-time monitoring and evaluation on fault detection systems, taking into account several degradation model characteristics. In order to validate the proposed methodology a test bench was developed in a lab reproducing some common faults and degradation processes that may occur in the field. The proposed approach makes use of a data acquisition equipment to store information from sensors to monitor specific physical variables from mechanical components such as gears. A test sequence is applied to the valve control actuators with the following steps: a few seconds of faulty free operational cycle sensor data (which means the opening and closing operations are executing without failure) are collected and then a faulty system behavior is emulated changing some mechanical actuator parts to faulty ones. In the faulty emulation case, a malfunction event must be identified and reported by the fault detection system. The preliminary results indicate that the index is extremely useful especially when the degradation stage of a system is below, for example, catastrophic failure or a predefined level.

Leonardo Bisch Piccoli, Renato Ventura Bayan Henriques, Clayton Rocha, Eric Ericson Fabris, Carlos Pereira
Selective Maintenance for Multi-state Systems Considering the Benefits of Repairing Multiple Components Simultaneously

Many industrial systems such as aircrafts, ships, manufacturing systems, etc. are required to perform several missions with finite breaks between missions. Maintenance is only available within the breaks. Due to the limitation of resources, all components in the system may not be maintained as desired. The selective maintenance problem helps the decision makers figure out what critical components to select and how to perform maintenance on these components. This paper studies the selective maintenance for multi-state series-parallel systems with the benefit of repairing multiple components simultaneously. Both time and cost savings can be acquired when several components are simultaneously repaired in a selective maintenance strategy. As the number of repaired components increases, the saved time and cost will also increase due to the share of setting up between components and another additional reduction amount from the repair of multiple identical components. A non-linear optimization model is developed to find the most reliable system subjected to time and cost constraints. Genetic algorithm is used to solve the optimization model. An illustrative example will be provided.

Cuong D. Dao, Ming J. Zuo
The Development of ISO 55000 Series Standards

The launch of a set of three ISO Standards for Asset Management in 2014 represents a step change for the AM community. One of the Standards, ISO 55001 seeks to be applicable to all asset owners from Art Galleries to the Defence Force and will be used for certification. With over 25 participating countries there is expected to be a large number of organisations, regulators, and governments who look to these Standards for asset management and certification guidance. This paper provides an overview of the ISO 55001 standard, its relationship to the other standards in the set as well as identifying differences to the PAS55 Specification which preceded it. It describes the development process and identifies areas of major debate for the committee over the 3 years. These debates often relate to areas that lack theory and quantifiable evidence and hence represent opportunities for research, these are identified. The paper will be of value to those who are not familiar with the ISO process and wish to understand why the Standards have the content they do and how they will contribute to the future of Asset Management.

M. R. Hodkiewicz
A Preventive Maintenance Model for Linear Consecutive k-Out-of-n: F Systems with Dependent Components

Preventive maintenance (PM) is an important maintenance action to prevent from the occurrence of failures. This paper presents a PM policy for a linear consecutive k-out-of-n: F system that fails if and only if at least k consecutive components fail. The failure rate of a component depends on the state of the adjacent components since the load of a component may increase when its adjacent component fails. The failed components in the system are replaced with new ones either at the time of system failure or at the time of PM whichever comes first. A failure sequence diagram is presented to establish the reliability model of the system. Based on the reliability model, the optimal preventive maintenance strategy which minimizes the long-run expected system cost per unit time is studied with an illustrative example.

W. Wang, F. Zhao, R. Peng, L. Guo
Implementing Engineering Asset Management Standards (PAS-55) in Information Management Evaluation: Case Study in Hong Kong

A number of facility management companies manage commercial buildings that are owned by the Government and private companies in Hong Kong. To ensure the performance in better quality, most of them have obtained different quality recognitions such as PAS 55 standards. However, in many companies, the organizations or building departments do not pay much attention on performing the criteria stated in the standards. They just follow the rules but there are no specific rules or procedures for performance evaluation. In this research, we investigated the implementation of the standards in asset information management that was performing in Hong Kong and conducted comprehensive analysis for current operating situation in asset information management. A structured questionnaire was designed and data was collected from 30 Operation and Maintenance (OM) departments for commercial buildings. These buildings are owned by the Government and private companies. The users of buildings include public services, commercial and banking business, residential tenants, industrial sectors and composite services in Hong Kong. The answers generated from the questionnaire reveal the real situation in implementing the standards of PAS-55, especially in asset information management. The answers show different performance levels for different kinds of buildings. The evaluation results point out that different types of buildings have different strategies in adopting the standards. From the data analysis, it reveals that there is a substantial gap exists between the adoption of standard implementing and the significance level claimed by the users in some cases. Hence, a gap analysis was conducted for these special cases. Furthermore, the relationship between the significance level in implementing PAS 55 and the determining factors in asset information management section was explored.

Peter W. Tse, Jingjing Zhong, Samuel Fung
Distributed Pre-processing of Telemetry for Mobile Engineering Objects

To solve the problems of prognosis and further cost optimal planning of strategy EAM the various approaches of analysis of objects are used. The two main directions for the analysis of the system of states are allocated. First is related to cloud processing of telemetry of engineering object. Usually, it is implied that to identify predictors of failure and determining their trends needs large computing resources. The second direction is characterized by necessity of urgent decision-making, so the system of diagnosis and prognosis should work in real time and should be adapted on-board. However, questions of reliability of prognosis, diagnosis arise at the use of recognizing automata in the form of neural networks, hidden Markov chains, and Bayesian networks. The ideal solution of the problem is reduced to the integration of peripheral automata and remote cloud computing in a single system. In this case, the remote PHM cluster besides the functions of computing long-term prognosis and the development of optimal cost-effectiveness maintenance strategies executes. Also functions of learning and retraining of recognizing on-board automata at change of the operating conditions of engineering or change of the physical state of engineering, do not increasing the risk of failures. Using a chronological database of individual objects, as well as a common database of similar objects, remote computer system analyzes the nature of the changed conditions or conditions of engineering and on the basis of CH&P model selects a system of evolution equations for prognosis of the development of predictors and hidden predictors. Then the method of retraining on-board recognizing automata is based on the evolution equations or the new scheme of real time recognizing that does not require training is constructed. The paper gives the experimental results demonstrating the operation of the automata and the remote cluster for commercial vehicles.

Vitalii Iakimkin, Aleksandr Kirillov, Sergey Kirillov
Sewer Linings—The Failures, Common Reasons and New Innovative Lining to Increase Reliability of Restoration

Concrete structures are an integral part of society. Today most sewerage systems are constructed from concrete as the foundation. Concrete is susceptible to corrosion under many conditions and in sewers the acidic waste can degrade the concrete asset quickly without protection, and lead to a failure of this foundation system. The Sewer Mains are predominant concerns however an often overlooked concern is with Man Holes, Wet Wells, Access and Inspection Chambers where the moist environment and stagnant air flow allows corrosion to readily occur. Considerable effort goes into the design and construction of concrete structures, the concrete pipes, sewerage pumping stations and sewerage treatment plants. These represent considerable financial investment and with clear appreciation of options to protect these assets and how they perform in the future will provide maximum operational life. There are various ways to protect concrete from corrosion in sewerage related installations. This is a simple overview of the common systems in use and outlines the various products strengths and weaknesses, and introduces a new novel approach based on traditional proven practices.

N. Subotsch
Bottleneck Management in Supply Networks: Lessons to Learn from a Synoptic Systems Perspective

Networks of organizations are the predominant form of value creation in manufacturing industries and are becoming more complex as complexity of products and specialization of knowledge increase. A higher level of collaboration among organizations changes the distribution and types of benefits and risks in supply networks. Some of the risks result from increased dependence on other organizations in the network as these take over larger portions of value creation or functions closer to the very core of the product. With a great share of value-added being created by suppliers, reliability of the supply network becomes a more pressing issue. Bottlenecks in such networks can turn into major impediments to the success of the focal firm. Drawing on literature on bottleneck analysis, production planning, systems theory and supply chain risk management, this paper examines some commonalities and differences between local production systems and supply networks with respect to the emergence of bottlenecks and how they can be managed.

Jakob E. Beer
On the Capitalization and Management of Infrastructure Assets: A Case from the North Sea on Its Natural Gas Export Pipelines

With the growth of demand for energy, natural gas was predicted to be a major energy commodity in immediate future. In the current setting, it would also act as a transitional energy source (due to its low emission) towards greener energy goals within EU countries. However, production and transportation of gas to various markets have also been met with different challenges, for instance due to economical as well as technical reasons. Norway is one of the leading natural gas exporters in the world, serving a large portion of Europe’s energy demand through its subsea gas pipeline infrastructure. In light of not only global uncertainty, but also with respect to the potential market position, a major question is that what types of challenges are present in a specific critical downstream asset such as a subsea natural gas pipeline when striving to uphold the position as leading gas supplier to Europe. This is also a question of future opportunities in the ongoing energy debate despite the current economic conditions. This paper, based on a case study on a section of the large Norwegian gas transportation infrastructure, examines a wide range of multiple challenges, all of which could possibly challenge and pose a risk for the reliability and efficiency of gas supply from the Norwegian shelf. It elaborates on the current and future threats/challenges on the capitalization and management of the gas export pipelines from a longer-term perspective when striving for optimal asset availability in regards to future energy demand. The paper also elaborates on a specific scenario that would help the asset owners and other stakeholders to draw up a suitable strategy for long term value creation using a Strategy map.

Eric Risa, Jayantha P. Liyanage
Current Status and Innovative Trends of Asset Integrity Management (AIM): Products & Services in the Norwegian Oil and Gas Industry

Owing to commercial opportunities in the Norwegian Oil & Gas (O&G) sector, there is a growing demand for new products and services for Asset Integrity Management (AIM). In general, the market demands greater degree of innovation in the field of AIM seeking means to simplify complex work processes and at the same time to have a better understanding and awareness of inherent risks. The trends for innovative AIM products and services can always be challenged due to such factors as cost, organizational capacity, technological capacity as well as underlying business growth potential of the innovation. Other barriers may arise from financial constraints, regulatory requirements, non-proven technology and clients’ conservative perspective to invest in new and revolutionary products. Keeping such challenges in mind, this paper attempts to map the current status and future trends of Asset Integrity Management (AIM) products and services in the Norwegian O&G industry. This paper highlights the status and gaps through a thorough literature and market survey to identify the type of AIM services and products within AIM for Norwegian O&G assets. It also highlights new emerging trends from AIM contractors/service providers to align their products to match with the new asset integrated operational environment, such as Integrated Operations (IO).Interestingly, there appears to be less innovation in the industry despite the fact that the age of the industry is increasing. Some of the reasons include limited knowledge and competencies, operators and regulatory bodies’ conservative attitude towards new technologies. This attitude regulates the development and deployment of AIM due to its sensitivity in terms of managing asset related uncertainties and vulnerabilities.

Oluwaseun O. Kadiri, Jawad Raza, Jayantha P. Liyanage
Effect of High Speed Rail Transit and Impact Loads on Ballast Degradation

The emerging need of railway as a principal means of massive transport has encouraged the development of high speed trains in Australia. Large and frequent cyclic loading from heavy and fast trains leads to a progressive deterioration of the underlying railway structural system. The lack of research on degradation of ballast to counter the effects of high speed trains threatens the reliability and safety of train services and hence leads to more frequent and costly maintenance. Compaction testing with the Amsler equipment was conducted to deliver a graphical representation of fouling rates and the loading at which ballast becomes ineffective. The hammer drop test was employed to predict the service life of ballast under cyclic loading. Finite element analysis of a railway structural system subjected to a moving wheel with varying train speeds was conducted to obtain impact forces on sleeper and ballast under wheel flat effect. The deformation and stress behaviour of rail and ballast were investigated. It has been found that trains exceeding 210 km/h with a 100 mm wheel flat defect pose an immediate threat of accelerated fouling of ballast. Key findings also include the detection of different stages of ballast interaction, the observation of critical fouling force and the service life prediction of ballast under different train speeds.

Nicholas Keeng, Jun Li, Hong Hao
Integrating Real-Time Monitoring and Asset Health Prediction for Power Transformer Intelligent Maintenance and Decision Support

Large sized transformers are an important part of global power systems and industrial infrastructures. An unexpected failure of a power transformer can cause severe production damage and significant loss throughput the power grid. In order to prevent power facilities from malfunctions and breakdowns, the development of real-time monitoring and health prediction tools are of great interests to both researchers and practitioners. An advanced monitoring tool performs real-time monitoring of key parameters to detect signals of potential failure through data mining techniques and prediction models. Asset managers use the result to develop a suitable maintenance and repair strategy for failure prevention. Principal component analysis (PCA) and back-propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) are the algorithms adopted in the research. This chapter utilizes industrial power transformers’ historical data from Taiwan and Australia to train and test the failure prediction models and to verify the proposed methodology. First, PCA detects the conditions of transformers by identifying the state of dissolved gasses. Then, the BP-ANN health prediction model is trained using the key factor values. The integrated engineering asset management database includes nine gases in oil as input factors (N

2

, O

2

, CO

2

, CO, H

2

, CH

4

, C

2

H

4

, C

2

H

6

, and C

2

H

2

). After applying the principal components algorithm, the research identifies five factors from the Taiwan operational transformer data and six factors from the Australia data. The integrated PCA and BP-ANN fault diagnosis system yields effective and accurate predictions when tested using Taiwan and Australia data. The accuracy rates are much higher (i.e., 92 and 96 % respectively) when compared to previous result of 69 and 75 %. This research is benchmarked against the DGA heuristic approaches including IEEE’s Doernenburg and Rogers and IEC’s Duval Triangle for the experimental fault diagnoses.

Amy J. C. Trappey, Charles V. Trappey, Lin Ma, Jimmy C.M. Chang
Bridge Deterioration Modeling by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) Simulation Method

There are over 10,000 rail bridges in Australia that were made of different materials and constructed at different years. Managing thousands of bridges has become a real challenge for rail bridge engineers without having a systematic approach for decision making. Developing best suitable deterioration models is essential in order to implement a comprehensive Bridge Management System (BMS). In State Based Markov Deterioration (SBMD) modeling, the main task is to estimate Transition Probability Matrixes (TPMs). In this study, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation method is utilized to estimate TPMs of railway bridge elements by overcoming some limitations of conventional and nonlinear optimization-based TPM estimation methods. The bridge inventory data over 15 years of 1,000 Australian railway bridges were reviewed and contribution factors for railway bridge deterioration were identified. MCMC simulation models were applied at bridge network level. Results show that TPMs corresponding to critical bridge elements can be obtained by Metropolis-Hasting Algorithm (MHA) coded in MATLAB program until it converges to stationary transition probability distributions. The predicted condition state distributions of selected bridge element group were tested by statistical hypothesis tests to validate the suitability of bridge deterioration models developed.

N. K. Walgama Wellalage, Tieling Zhang, Richard Dwight, Khaled El-Akruti
The Stress Dependence of the Magnetic Characteristics of Heat Resistant Steel 13CrMo4-5 and the Possibility of the Stresses Assessment on the Base of These Characteristics

Paper presents the results of investigation on the tensile stresses dependence of magnetic characteristics of the heat resistant 13CrMo4-5 steel. For this investigation, the frame-shaped samples were used. Due to the specialized force reversing system, compressive force generates the uniform tensile stresses in the sample. Magnetic characteristics are measured under these stresses by digitally controlled hysteresis graph. On the base of results of measurements the magnetoelastic characteristics of resistant 13CrMo4-5 steel were determined. These characteristics indicate that change from elastic to plastic deformation significantly changes the magnetic properties of this steel. This information has great technical importance from the point of view of non-destructive testing of construction elements made of heat resistant 13CrMo4-5 steel.

D. Jackiewicz, J. Salach, R. Szewczyk, A. Bieńkowski
Lithium-Ion Battery Degradation Related Parameter Estimation Using Electrochemistry-Based Dual Models

This chapter presents an adaptive model for estimating the State of Charge (SOC) of a lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery cell throughout its lifetime and its parameters based on electrochemical model. A Dual Extended Kalman Filter (DEKF) model is proposed for SOC estimation by using two cooperating extended Kalman filters, where the first one is responsible for estimating the SOC while the second one estimates the cell parameters indicating the level of cell deterioration due to aging. The dual filter combination is capable of tuning Kalman gains and providing accurate estimates even when the dynamics of the parameters change as the cell ages (e.g., inner resistance, capacity). By comparing with the experimental data, the results from the proposed method show an efficient SOC estimation with quick convergence and robust estimation of parameter changes in the long run.

Yangbing Lou, Xiaoning Jin, Jun Ni, Sheng Cheng, X. Jin
Segregation of Close Frequency Components Based on Reassigned Wavelet Analysis for Machinery Fault Diagnosis

Vibration signals of rotating machinery often contain many closely located frequency components. While Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analysis of the signals can identify exact frequency components in the vibration spectrum easily, conventional wavelet analysis is generally incapable of discriminating closely located frequency components in vibration signals due to overlapping and interference appearing in wavelet results. Wavelet transforms based on wavelet reassignment algorithm to improve time-frequency resolution display is presented in this chapter. The proposed reassigned (modified) Morlet wavelet was tested using simulated signal and experimental data obtained from a multi-stage blades rotor test rig. This study showed that this method was capable of segregating close BPF components which were otherwise lumped together in conventional wavelet analysis display. The reassigned Morlet wavelet analysis was shown to be useful for multi stage blade rubbing diagnosis as well as other general condition monitoring applications such as those for gear and bearing faults diagnosis.

Ahmed M. Abdelrhman, M. Salman Leong, Lim Meng Hee, Salah M. Ali Al-Obaidi
Feature Extraction of Rubbing Fault Based on AE Techniques

The rotor-to-stator rub is one of the main serious malfunctions that often occur in rotating machinery. The acoustic emission (AE) signal is very sensitive to rubbing occurrence and development. However, it is still very difficult to identify the rubbing AE signal from other faults AE signals such as crack AE signal, corrosion AE signal and so on. Rubbing AE signal is nonlinear and non-stationary, and Hilbert–Huang transform is powerful in processing nonlinear and non-stationary signals. Then Hilbert–Huang transform is used to extract the instantaneous frequency of the AE signal of rubbing fault. The experiment results show that the Hilbert–Huang transform has a good potential for the acoustic emission signal processing in rubbing fault diagnostics.

Wenxiu Lu, Fulei Chu
Use of Condition Monitoring in the Proactive Maintenance Strategy

The objectives of the presented paper are to better understand the mechanism of failure development in the dynamic mechanical systems. It is important to consider carefully the present changes in technical conditions of elements of the system when planning the requirements to a proactive risk management’s strategy. While a dynamical system traditionally is modeled by structural decomposition, in the paper the dynamic behavior of system is modeled by decomposition of the behavior flow into events and errors accompanying occurrence of failure. From this point of view the nonlinear model of failure occurrence is analyzed to realizing long term benefits of a proactive maintenance strategy. The models describe the effect on the evolution at the process variables for each hypothesized fault failure. In the paper it is also analyzed the impact of nonlinearity of the sub-section on the behavior of the whole system.

Stanislaw Radkowski, Marcin Jasinski
Diagnostic Model of Hysteresis for Condition Monitoring of Large Construction Structures

The conception of diagnostics, based on passive magnetic field measurements is being presented. It was shown that the transformation of the signal to the appropriate form of hysteresis, creates new potential for identifying changes in signal parameters that correspond to specific physical phenomena. Model supported analysis of changes in the magnetic field, made it possible to obtain diagnostic parameters characterizing magnetomechanical hysteresis, which can be used in determining the state of the material strain on the object structure subjected to variable loads. Suitable model of hysteresis was elaborated and conditions in which it could be applied were stated. Obtained by authors diagnostic parameter confirm the validity of the hysteresis model used for this case. The chapter concludes that state of polarization of the magnetic structure (the distribution of magnetization) is carrier of diagnostic information about the level of effort and the progressive degradation of the material structure. It is possible to obtain the diagnostic information through a remote, non-contact measurement of magnetic field near the test structure.

Szymon Gontarz, Stanisław Radkowski
Online Monitoring of Steel Constructions Using Passive Methods

In the chapter the possibilities of development of distributed diagnostic system capable of online structural health monitoring of civil engineering structures are discussed. Instead of commonly used methods of determining the technical state of the construction that are usually focused on searching for cracks, material heterogeneities and assessing concrete or steel degradation, the methods proposed for the system are based on the comparative strain gauge, acceleration and passive magnetic measurements. All this measurement methods are used for stress assessment in critical fragments that are vital for stability and durability of the structure. Evolution of defects in the construction causes measurable changes of stress distribution in critical joints of the construction. Additionally, materials that could cause threat of the catastrophic accident caused by fatigue wear, exceeding stress limits or emerging of plastic deformations have magnetic properties that could affect the local magnetic field. Stress limits could be then constantly supervised taking into account the range of permanent and elastic deformation, which would allow for early detection of threats. SHM data analysis is taking into consideration a series of magneto-mechanical and other phenomena occurring during the construction/machine’s operation and also actual magnetization conditions of the object examined in exterior magnetic field (Earth’s or derived from adjacent elements).

Szymon Gontarz, Jędrzej Mączak, Przemysław Szulim
Experimental Research on Misfire Diagnosis Using the Instantaneous Angular Speed Signal for Diesel Engine

Built a test bench for WP10.240 high-speed diesel engines, the normal and misfire faults were simulated, the Top Dead Centers (TDC) signal and Instantaneous Angular Speed (IAS) signal were measured; The IAS signals of the diesel engine were processed by the period average, tooth average and smooth handling methods, the IAS signals were analyzed in both conditions of normal and single cylinder misfire, the feature parameters were abstracted, and the fault diagnosis criteria using the IAS signal for misfire were obtained.

Yu-hai He, Jian-guo Yang, Cheng’en Li, Fu-song Duan
Design and Implementation of Integrated Monitoring and Diagnosis System for Marine Diesel Engine

Marine diesel engine is the main power source of ship. Its safety and reliability can be improved by monitoring and diagnosing engine’s running status. A kind of Integrated multi-method multi-parameter Monitoring and Diagnosis (IMD) system for marine diesel engine is presented in the paper for the purpose of meeting the application in real ship environment. Test and information technology are fully reflected in the design of IMD system which can monitor the running status and diagnose a variety of common faults of marine diesel engine. IMD system contains six sub-monitoring systems which are Thermal Parameter Monitoring (TPM) system, Instantaneous Speed Monitoring (ISM) system, Cylinder Pressure Monitoring (CPM) system, Shaft Power Monitoring (SPM) system, Valve Leakage Monitoring (VLM) system and Piston Ring Monitoring (PRM) system.

Nao Hu, Jianguo Yang, Yonghua Yu
Universal Wireless System for Bridge Health Monitoring

Since August 2010, Resensys wireless SenSpot tilt and strain sensors were deployed to monitor a highway bridge in Maryland. Similar installations were performed in bridges in the US, Canada, and Indonesia. Signal analyses concluded important observations about the response of the bridge bearings to change of temperature. In some instances, the change in the strain exceeded 30 microstrains, e.g., due to the bridge rehabilitation work. The decision parameters about the state of a structure were fused to produce the structural integrity knowledge to be used for predictive diagnostics. Using this method, the monitoring system can predict rupture, crack, yielding or generally any signals before the collapse of a structure or any member damage before it happens. Finally, Resensys is working with Analatom, Inc, and other third-party OEMs in the development of an Onboard SHM Data Aggregator Module (OSDAM) platform to manage and control access to multiple SHM Sensor Systems.

Mehdi Kalantari Khandani, Farshad Ahdi, Amirhossein Mirbagheri, Richard Connolly, Douglas Brown, Duane Darr, Jeffrey Morse, Bernard Laskowski
Corrosion Detection on Buried Transmission Pipelines with Micro-Linear Polarization Resistance Sensors

This paper presents an experiment adapting linear polarization resistance-based corrosion sensors, originally developed for aerospace applications, to measure the corrosion rate of API 5L ERW grade-B steel natural gas line pipe using micro-sized linear polarization resistance (µLPR) sensors made from the same alloy and grade steel. Sensors were installed under a 15 mil coating of fusion-bonded epoxy, at various proximities to a 1/8 inch defect introduced at a weld joint and along the pipe seam. After sensor installation the pipe was buried in an controlled environment with soil amended to a pH of five. This environment was held at a temperature above 35 °C while soil moisture content was modulated between wet and dry cycles, each lasting 7 days. LPR and environmental measurements were sampled at 5 min intervals. Post processing was performed to convert the LPR measurements to a surface-loss. Comparisons made in the data showed API 5L ERW grade-B steel natural gas pipelines were highly susceptible to corrosion along the seam, with all sensors showing activity in this region early in the experiment. Sensors adjacent to a weld joint began to display evidence of corrosion more slowly. These results verify the ability of µLPR sensors to measure corrosion activity under protective coatings in underground environments.

Richard J. Connolly, Douglas Brown, Duane Darr, Jeffrey Morse, Bernard Laskowski
Experimental Research on Diagnosis of Valve Leakage for Diesel Engines Based on Acoustic Emission

The fault diagnosis mechanism of valve leakage for diesel engines based on acoustic emission signal is analyzed through a series of static and dynamic experiments in this work. Charging the cylinder with compressed air when the diesel engine is at the standby state, acoustic emission signals under normal and different degrees of valve leakage conditions were tested, characteristic frequency stimulated by valve leakage was found out. Then dynamic tests on diesel engine were further carried out, and the sensitive fault characteristic parameters were extracted. Finally, a method of identifying fault of valve leakage based on SVM model was presented according to these features.

Yonghua Yu, Pengfei Ji, Jianguo Yang
Development of Safety, Control and Monitoring System for Medium-Speed Marine Diesel Engine

A local safety, control and monitoring system designed and implemented for medium-speed marine diesel engine is presented in the paper. The system consists of a control and monitoring sub-system, a safety sub-system and an online monitoring sub-system. The data exchange among the sub-system is conducted with the communication link of RS-485 interface. The hardware circuits and logical algorithm of the system are developed to achieve the functionalities in terms of diesel engine staring, stopping, fault shutdown protection, etc. The operating data of the diesel engine are captured in real time and the vital operational parameters and alarm messages are displayed with the nixie tubes and LED. As well, depending on the online monitoring sub-system, the control instruction and operational parameters could be monitored, analyzed and recorded. Additionally, a test platform is established to verify and validate the function of the system. Finally, the matching test between the system and the diesel engine is carried out via the experiment bench of MAN16/24 medium-speed diesel engine. The results show that the local safety, control and monitoring system works stable and the functions of the conventional control, parameter monitoring and alarming for the diesel engine meet the design requirement.

Qinpeng Wang, Yihang Qin, Jianguo Yang, Yonghua Yu, Yuhai He
Research on Magnetism Monitoring Technology of Piston Ring Wear for Marine Diesel Engine

As the key parts of marine diesel engine, the working state of the piston rings affects the performance of the marine diesel engine directly. Therefore, it is significant to research on the monitoring piston rings wear method for the marine diesel engine. The three-dimensional finite element calculation magneto-resistive model of piston rings wear was developed based on RTA52U marine diesel engine in the paper. There is a single corresponding relationship between the piston ring wear and magnetic field changes on the monitoring point by theoretical calculation results. The sensor used for monitoring piston rings wear and a sensor calibration equipment were developed. The piston rings wear monitoring sensor is developed and reliable through calibration test. The correction of the calculation magneto-resistive model is verified by experiments on board.

Jian-guo Yang, Qiao-ying Huang
Criteria and Performance Survey in Applying PAS 55 to Hong Kong Buildings and Plants

Following the global trend of escalating customer expectation of services and products in the trade of Engineering Asset Management (EAM), a systematic and international engineering management system was developed within the Publicly Available Specification: Asset Management in Year 2004 (PAS 55:2004) by British Standard Institution (BSI). The International Standards Organization (ISO) has adopted its subsequent edition [

1

] for development of asset management series of international standards. This article highlights an application research served to conduct a tentative sampling survey on about 31 building and plant practitioners in EAM. On following their management systems mapped according to the PAS 55 framework, their O&M performances can be evaluated by an artificial intelligence based method, which is designed according to PAS 55 criteria, and used to establish models. The intelligent method makes use of the survey information to model the benchmarking levels of PAS 55 and the requirements for different categories of EAM practitioners. Section 4.4.6 Information Management of PAS 55:2008 was selected in this study. A questionnaire was designed to survey the performance of the local 31 building practitioners in EAM. The survey result has been adopted as a reference to virtual adoption levels at PAS 55. Practical means have also been revealed so that the building O&M practitioners can find their ways to accomplish a full recognition in EAM and vital references in benchmarking their performance with the world recognized EAM performance.

Samuel K. S. Fung, Peter W. Tse
Competency Enhancement Model of Physical Infrastructure and Asset Management in Compliance with PAS-55 for Hong Kong Automotive Manufacturing Engineers

To cope with the pitfall induced by the quick growth rate in asset management of automotive components manufacturing, an industry-wide professional competence development programme was initiated by SAE-HK and implemented by HKPC to upgrade the production and engineering asset management capability of Hong Kong automotive manufacturing engineers in order to boost the overall operation quality and efficiency of the industry. Through the comprehensive programme including the formulation of a human resources competence model for the industry, identification of major facility engineering and optimization tools in PAS-55 including Condition Assessment Technique (CAT); Machine Capability Index (MCI), Maintenance Analysis and Management (MAM) and Facility Management Information System (FIMS); PAS-55 system trial run and tools application at pilot companies; and the compilation of a best-in-class training and PAS-55 system implementation manual, local automotive component engineers are practically equipped with appropriate tools to understand the risks their businesses face, and the factors associated with facility optimization and prioritization.

K. K. Lee, Raymond M. Y. Shan, Horace C. H. Leung, Joseph W. H. Li
Evaluation of Engineering Asset Acquisitions in EAM Based on DEA

This paper focuses on the process of acquisition of the engineering asset life cycle management and uses DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) Model to evaluate the alternatives (decision making units, DMU). Firstly, based on the principles of the fuzzy clustering and rough set, we give an introduction to the object-weight-constrained DEA model. Then, Given the life cycle cost and taking the civil aircraft as an example, we take the cost of the acquisition, the cost of operation and maintenance, the cost of retirement disposal as the input variables and main performance parameters of the civil aircraft which include Wind Loading and Thrust-to-weight Ratio as the output variables, then, with the DEA linear programming and the use of LINGO, we can easily get the efficient DMUs and provide optimization suggestions for the inefficient DMUs. Also, we can get the scale benefit and technology availability of the DMUs respectively. Finally, we analyse the results and get the conclusion that the results meet the fact in the airlines.

Wei Liu, Wen-bing Chang, Sheng-han Zhou
Method of Measuring Mechanical Properties for Semi-Infinite Coating Materials

At present coating materials are widely used in the field of aerospace, machinery, petroleum, chemical, nuclear power. The strength and failure analysis of coating is more and more important, at the same time the coating mechanical properties are critical for guiding the industrial electroplating. The elastic constant is one of the most important mechanical properties of parameters that are needed to be evaluated. The paper presents the measurement method of elastic constants for coating material based acoustic microscopy technology. The elastic constants of different thickness semi-infinite nickel coating materials are test by the

V

(

f

,

z

) analytical method, it’s a frequency domain method; which is to obtain the experimental dispersion curves. The mechanical properties of the nickel coating can be inversed by changing the longitudinal wave velocity and shear wave velocity of nickel coating to fit the theoretical dispersion curves with the experimental dispersion curves. The experimental results show the method is feasible, this study lays a foundation for evaluating mechanical properties for semi-infinite coating materials.

Guorong Song, Hongshi Liu, Zimu Li, Cunfu He, Bin Wu
The Design of a MRE-Based Nonlinear Broadband Energy Harvester

In this article, a conceptual design with its architecture of a broadband, vibration-based, nonlinear energy harvester is reported. Its non-linear behavior and its functionality are presented. Compared to that provided by conventional linear beam type of energy harvesters, this nonlinear harvester can provide widen the resonance frequency ranges. Hence, it can collect more vibration energy generated at various dominant rotational frequencies of a rotary machine. A smart material, called Magneto Rheological Elastomer (MRE), was added to the usual beam structured energy harvester. Since MRE is one of the magnetic smart materials, of which their stiffness can be tuned by precisely controlling the applied magnetic field, the stiffness of the combined piezoelectric beam with MRE becomes adjustable. Because of the adjustable stiffness, the resonance frequency of the new beam type energy harvester can be adaptively changed to match with a particular dominant rotational frequency generated by the monitored machine so that maximum vibration energy can be harvested. Moreover, due to the nonlinearity of the new composite beam structure, the range of resonance frequency range can be widened to make it easier to adapt a slightly varying dominant rotational frequency due to the monitored machine has small speed variation. Besides the presentation of design and its with its architecture in the article, the simulated and experimental results of the new non-linear harvester are also reported here. From the comparison study of the bandwidth and the output power generated by the new nonlinear energy harvester against that generated from conventional harvester, the result shows that new non-linear harvester is functioning superior to that of the conventional harvesters.

Peter W. Tse, M. L. Wang
Feature Selection Approach Based on Physical Model of Transmission System in Rotary Aircraft for Fault Prognosis

A majority of the mishaps of rotary aircraft are caused by the faults in drive train which is composed of some complex rotary mechanical systems. Planetary gear sets are common mechanical components and are widely used to transmit power and change speed and/or direction in rotary aircrafts. Planetary gear sets are epicyclical gear drive that is more complex compared to ordinary gear train, so the features of planetary gear sets is quite different from traditional features and hard to extract. This research focuses on the physical-model-based approach to extract features for planetary gear set. Physical model will be established for planetary gear set with fault. Then, the features suitable for severity estimation is selected based on the simulation signals of physical models. After that, the tests with faults seeded are carried out, and the validation has a promising result.

Cheng Zhe, Hu Niao-Qing, Zhang Xin-Peng
Machinery Fault Signal Reconstruction Using Time-Frequency Manifold

Machinery fault signals generally represent as periodic transient impulses, which often associate with important measurement information for machinery fault diagnosis. However, the existence of much background noise in practice makes it difficult to detect the transient impulses. Thus, it is very necessary to de-noise the measured signal and extract the intrinsic machinery fault signal for a reliable fault diagnosis. In this chapter, a novel de-noising method based on the time-frequency manifold (TFM) is proposed. This method mainly includes the following several steps. First, the phase space reconstruction (PSR) is employed to achieve a group of high-dimensional signals. For each dimensional signal, the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) is then conducted. Third, a suitable band carrying fault information is used for learning the TFM. Finally, the TFM is used to reconstruct the fault signal based on time-frequency synthesis and PSR synthesis. As the TFM has the merits of noise suppression and resolution enhancement to represent the inherent time-frequency structure, the reconstructed fault signal also has satisfactory de-noising effect, as well as good effect of inherent transient feature keeping. The proposed method has been employed to deal with a set of bearing data with rolling-element defect and outer-race defect, and the results show that the method is rather superior to two traditional methods in machinery fault signal de-noising.

Xiangxiang Wang, Qingbo He
A Bearing Fault Detection Method Base on Compressed Sensing

For bearing fault detection in frequency domain, traditional methods estimate bearing fault condition based on mass data sampled by Nyquist sampling theorem, which will burden the storage. A new bearing fault detection method based on compressed sensing will be proposed in this paper in allusion to the problem mentioned above. The method presented here carried out compressive sampling and get a small set of incoherent projections, often the number of projections can be much smaller than the number of Nyquist rate samples. Then based on matching pursuit, the bearing condition will be estimated finally using these few measurements directly without ever reconstructing the signals involved. Sparsity of original signal is not demanded since the signal does not need to be recovered completely, which will also helped to expanded the method to other signals with similar characteristics in frequency domain. Related test will be achieved to verify the effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper.

Zhang Xinpeng, Hu Niaoqing, Cheng Zhe
Implementing IVHM on Legacy Aircraft: Progress Towards Identifying an Optimal Combination of Technologies

The aim of Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) is to improve the management of maintenance operations through the implementation of health monitoring tools on key components either by diagnosing deterioration or by estimating Remaining Useful Life (RUL) so as to effect timely, and cost effective, maintenance. Regarding the use of IVHM technology in legacy aircraft, one has to keep in mind that hardware modifications to improve the reliability of components is not normally considered a viable alternative to diagnostic and prognostic tools due to high certification costs. At the same time, the data and expertise gathered over years of operating the aircraft help to estimate much more accurately how different health monitoring tools could impact maintenance activities. Consequently, selecting the optimal combination of health monitoring tools for legacy aircraft is significantly easier than for a new design. While computer simulations of the maintenance process are essential to determine how different IVHM tools generate value for the stakeholders, it is not practicable to simulate all possible combinations in order to select which tools are to be installed. This paper describes a process to reduce their number of toolsets to be simulated starting with the identification of those components that present a higher potential to reduce maintenance costs and times in case their faults could be detected and/or predicted. This is followed by the definition of the minimum required accuracy of diagnostic and prognostic tools for each component. This enables designers to determine which tools—available or still being developed—can be implemented to achieve the expected improvement in maintenance operations. Different combinations of IVHM tools are then subjected to a preliminary risk and cost-benefit analysis. A significantly reduced number of combinations are then simulated to select the optimal blend of technologies.

Manuel Esperon-Miguez, Ian K. Jennions, Philip John
A New Method of Acoustic Signals Separation for Wayside Fault Diagnosis of Train Bearings

For the acoustic signal acquired by a microphone is composed of a number of train bearing signals and noises, single signal of failure train bearing should be extracted to diagnose the fault type precisely in wayside fault diagnosis of train bearings. However, the phenomenon of Doppler distortion effect in the acoustic signal acquired with a microphone leads to the difficulty for signal separation. In this chapter, a new method based on Dopplerlet transform, time-frequency filtering and inverse generalized S-transform is proposed to separate different fault types of train bearing signals from the acoustic signal. Firstly, search the parameters space to find the primary functions-Dopplerlet atoms which match the original signal best by matching-pursuits-based Dopplerlet transform. According to the parameters, these Dopplerlet atoms are divided into different groups corresponding to diverse acoustic sources. Through extracting the data of Dopplerlet atoms in a group and its neighborhood in time-frequency domain, the signal of corresponding train bearing can be reconstructed by the inverse transformation of GST. To diagnose the fault type of the reconstructed signal, re-sampling is carried out to remove the Doppler distortion effect in advance. After that, we can identify the fault type of reconstructed signal corresponding to a certain train bearing through the envelope spectrum. Finally, experiments with practical acoustic signals of train bearings with a defect on the outer race and the inner race are carried out, and the results verified the effectiveness of this method.

Ao Zhang, Fang Liu, Changqing Shen, Fanrang Kong
Fault Detection and Diagnostics Using Data Mining

The purpose of data mining is to find new knowledge from databases in which complexity or the amount of data has so far been prohibitively large for human observation alone. Self-Organizing Map (SOM) is a special type of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) used in clustering, visualization and abstraction. In modern process automation systems, it is possible to collect and store huge amounts of measurement data. In this paper, SOM is used successfully to discover the base models from the automation system. Strategies based on data mining techniques are further developed for efficient fault detection and diagnostics. A semi-supervised anomaly detection technique is used with classification rules based on standardized data and domain experts’ analysis to construct the condition monitoring system.

Sun Chung, Dukki Chung
Fault Detection of Planetary Gearboxes Based on an Adaptive Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition

Planetary gearboxes are widely used in modern industry because of their advantages of large transmission ratio, strong load-bearing capacity, etc. Planetary gearboxes differ from fixed-axis gearboxes and exhibit unique behaviors, which increase the difficulty of fault detection. The vibration based signal processing technique is one of the principal tools for detecting gearbox faults. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD), as a time-frequency analysis technique, has been used to process nonlinear and non-stationary problems. But it has the shortcoming of mode mixing in decomposing signals. To overcome this shortcoming, ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) was proposed accordingly. EEMD can reduce the mode mixing to some extent. The performance of EEMD, however, depends on the parameters adopted in the EEMD algorithm. In current studies on EEMD, the parameters were generally selected artificially and subjectively. To solve the problem, a new adaptive ensemble empirical mode decomposition method is proposed in this chapter. In the method, the sifting number is adaptively selected and the amplitude of the added noise changes with the signal frequency during the decomposition process. Both simulations and a case of fault detection of a planetary gear demonstrate that the proposed method obtains the improved results compared with the original EEMD.

Yaguo Lei, Naipeng Li, Jing Lin
Building Diagnostic Techniques and Building Diagnosis: The Way Forward

As buildings become old, their structural conditions deteriorate, causing concerns of irreparable damage and structural safety. To address these concerns of aged buildings, regular inspection and condition assessment for the purpose of building diagnosis are required. The inspection may consist of visual inspection, crack mapping, deflection measurement, settlement measurement, and observations of signs of water leakage and steel corrosion, whereas the condition assessment generally comprises of taking samples for materials testing, in situ measurement of temperature, moisture, half-cell electrical potential, vibration and delamination, and occasionally even continuous monitoring. However, in Hong Kong, not all of the test and measurement methods are accredited and often different laboratories/personnel follow different practices. Finally, building diagnosis has to be performed to make a judgment on the overall structural condition in terms of expected residual life and the repair needed. This requires good knowledge of structural engineering, materials and testing. Hence, building diagnosticians should be recognised as professionals of a special discipline, but this is not happening yet.

A. K. H. Kwan, P. L. Ng
Upcoming Role of Condition Monitoring in Risk-Based Asset Management for the Power Sector

The electrical power sector is stimulated to evolve under the pressures of the energy transition, the deregulation of electricity markets and the introduction of intelligent grids. In general, engineers believe that technologies such as monitoring, control and diagnostic devices, can realize this evolvement smoothly. Unfortunately, the contributions of these emerging technologies to business strategies remain difficult to quantify in straightforward metrics. Consequently, decisions to invest on these technologies are still taken in an ad hoc manner. This is far from the risk-based approach commonly recommended for asset management (AM). The paper introduces risk-based management as a guiding principle for maintenance management. Then, the triple-level AM model (strategic, tactical and operational) as the foundation to define risk-based AM is described. Afterwards, two categories of risks, one triggered by technical stimuli and the other by non-technical stimuli are introduced. It is shown that the main challenge of managing risks with technical stimuli is to have the ability to understand the technical cause of failures, which is located at the operational level within the triple-level AM model. One method to quantitatively understand the technical cause of failures is by means of condition diagnostic and monitoring technologies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to clarify the potential contribution of condition diagnostic and monitoring technologies to risk-based decision making for the power sector. This paper shows that, in practice, the implementation of condition diagnostic and monitoring technologies is mainly driven by purely technical asset based considerations without evaluating the contribution to, for instance, risks. This paper provides a list of aspects in which condition diagnostic and monitoring may contribute to risk evaluation with technical stimuli. The listed aspects (which are: (1) asset specific condition data, (2) timely condition data and (3) predictive condition data) can be regarded as input for the probability of failure and as influencing input for the consequence of failure, hence benefiting quantitative risk studies and AM activities (such as condition assessment/maintenance or replacement). Finally, these benefits can be evaluated afterwards in a risk-based AM planning stage, so that asset managers can justify investments on necessary technical improvements of condition monitoring systems.

R. P. Y. Mehairjan, Q. Zhuang, D. Djairam, J. J. Smit
Enhancing the Management of Hong Kong’s Underground Drainage and Sewerage Assets

The Drainage Services Department (DSD) is developing a long-term holistic management system for sewer and drain replacement and rehabilitation. The system will utilize a risk-based approach to prioritize rehabilitation and replacement (R&R) works and optimize preventive maintenance inspections and surveys. The project involves a review of existing asset information and asset management system, and the development of decision support tools for risk classification and works prioritization. Data in-filling techniques will be utilized to deal with data gaps, and deterioration models will be developed to project the latest structural conditions of assets. In addition, advanced inspection and rehabilitation technologies will be evaluated for possible pilot trials and applications. This paper will describe the approach in developing the system, work done to date, and how the system will tie in with the wider asset management initiatives of the organization. It will also discuss how the new system will enhance the operation and maintenance and services of DSD.

Stephanus Shou, H.S. Kan, Martin Jones, Craig Roberts, Andrew Tsang
Implementation of Computerized Maintenance Management System in Upgraded Pillar Point Sewage Treatment Works

In the past, monitoring and scheduling the operation and maintenance activities of physical assets in Sewage Treatment Works (STWs) of Drainage Services Department (DSD) follow a traditional risk based approach with due consideration to the financial as well as the state of the assets. For newly Upgraded Pillar Point Sewage Treatment Works (PPSTW), Recursive Auto-Regression (RAR) modelling [

1

] technique is adopted to automatically predict specific equipment’s remaining useful life (RUL) and compare the lead time of components’ delivery and process time of overhaul sub-contracting so as to establish an optimum preventive maintenance schedule with delivery, resources and cost optimization. Prediction accuracy of the developed RAR model is verified by numerical simulation with inputs to CMMS condition monitoring engine. A pilot study on the integration of CMMS with the SCADA system has been implemented on the outfall screw pump shaft bearings for experimental validation of the RUL model and investigating the feasibility of its application.

Henry K. M. Chau, Ricky C. L. Li, Tim S. T. Lee, Bill S. M. Cheung, Teck Suan Loy
Strategic Asset Management Approach for Sewage Treatment Facilities in Drainage Services Department, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

The Drainage Services Department (DSD) is tasked, among other commitments, to operate and maintain (O&M) about 280 sewage treatment facilities, ranging from pumping stations to sewage treatment works at an annual O&M departmental expense amounting to over HK$760 million. To ensure the life cycle cost of the Sewage Electrical and Mechanical (E&M) Assets at these facilities can be optimized, an asset management system based on PAS55-1:2008 standard has been developed and being tried at seven regional plants in the territory. It is aimed that the pilot studies can provide useful insight and solid foundation in establishing an asset management system eligible for PAS55 certification for the pilot plants to be completed tentatively by the end of 2013. This paper introduces the roadmap of developing the Sewage E&M Asset Management System based on PAS55-1:2008 standard and the progress achieved thus far. In the course of its development, the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency has been engaged as project consultant to provide asset management studies including feasibility study, staff training, overview of major gaps, framework establishment by enhancement of existing DSD’s Integrated Management System, pilot plant maturity review and assessment, etc. The pilot studies mark the evolution of strategic asset management approach in three stages, namely—Stage 1: To establish the scope and objectives of the studies leading to the development of an Asset Management Improvement Plan for Stage 2: To establish a unique asset management system for each of the pilot plants. The effectiveness and efficiency of the asset management system that established can then be determined through pilot implementation for a period of time. Stage 3: To adopt and extend the demonstrated successful examples to all other Sewage E&M Assets of DSD. It is envisaged that the pilot studies will lead to their initial certification of PAS55 for ultimate goal of attaining full certification of all DSD’s Sewage E&M Assets within 5 years.

Michael K. F. Yeung, Gary W. Y. Chu, K. Y. NG
Use of Information Technology in Asset Management for Sewage Treatment Plants in the Drainage Services Department

Over the past few decades, the advent of the digital revolution has transformed the landscapes of all utilities. Sewage treatment is one of them. Information technology (IT) has increasingly been incorporated into all operational aspects of the sewage treatment industry, and particularly in the last decade, it has become an indispensable tool without which the industry cannot keep going, thanks to increasing automation of sewage treatment plants. Not only is IT used exclusively for automation. An area that is receiving increasing attention lately in terms of the value added of applying IT to support business decision making and operation is asset management. In order to effectively and efficiently manage assets in sewage treatment plants, the Drainage Services Department has transformed their life-cycle management system of sewage treatment asset from paper-based processes to an IT-based system. In the heart of this IT system is an application called “Sewage Treatment Operation and Maintenance Management Information System (STOMMIS)”, which involves the synchronization and direct integration of multiple IT systems, including process control and automation systems, maintenance management and stock control systems, financial information system, and laboratory information systems. Data collected by STOMMIS are stored in a data warehouse for analysis to support optimization of maintenance activities as well as the development of asset replacement plan based on asset conditions and risks. Over time, the use of information technology to support asset management will only evolve and increase. This will include the use of intelligent devices on assets that will be able to monitor and report back their capacity, use, and downtimes. This paper will give an overview on what the Drainage Services Department, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has done in terms of applying IT to asset management in sewage treatment plants and the way forward for continual improvement.

T. K. Wong
Development of a Total Asset Management Strategy for the Operations and Maintenance Branch of the Drainage Services Department, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Established in 1989, the Drainage Services Department (DSD) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) manages the drainage and sewerage infrastructure in Hong Kong. DSD’s vision is to provide world-class wastewater and stormwater drainage services enabling the sustainable development of Hong Kong. Within this Department, the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Branch is the arm responsible for the operation and maintenance of public stormwater drainage and sewerage assets. Being a relatively wealthy city, Hong Kong has one of the most reliable drainage and sewerage systems around the world. Being a responsible organisation, DSD’s O&M Branch intends to implement Total Asset Management (TAM) to optimise the long-term management of assets and ensure cost effectiveness in utilising funds. AECOM Asia Co. Ltd. was commissioned by DSD in November 2012 to provide the consultancy support to the TAM Project in developing the TAM strategy in O&M Branch. This paper will present (1) the needs and drivers for DSD’s O&M Branch in adopting TAM; (2) the approach adopted by DSD’s O&M Branch in commencing its Asset Management (AM) journey; and (3) the way forward for DSD’s O&M Branch in implementing TAM. This paper will also address how the O&M Branch is prepared to work together with the other DSD’s Branches in expanding the current TAM strategy across the entire Department.

Ian Martin, Edward Poon, Yiu Wing Chung, Kwai Cheung Lai, Chi Leung Wong
Research on the Maturity Evaluation Method of the Transfer Phase in Flight Test

In the development of new aircrafts, flight test is a crucial link between the manufacturing process of the prototype and the acceptance of the final product. Based on the division of test phrase in China, this chapter explores the construction ideas of flight test maturity models. In terms of the technology status, integration status, manufacturing status, flight test status and RMS status, this chapter describes the flight test maturity, and establishes a more comprehensive and objective model—the Flight Test Maturity Model (FTMM) with specific description of each level of the test flight maturity characteristics. In this chapter, Flight state of maturity serves as the theoretical basis for the evaluation of the flight test phase, the Attribute Comprehensive Evaluation method is also used to test flight maturity. An example is given using flight testing maturity model to evaluate the test status of a new type of aircraft, which verifies the correctness of the model and its applicability in the flight test work.

Wenjin Zhang, Jie Meng, Nan Lan, Ying Ma
Bayesian Optimal Design for Step-Stress Accelerated Degradation Testing Based on Gamma Process and Relative Entropy

Accelerated degradation testing (ADT) technology for long-life and high-reliability products has become one of the key technologies in life and reliability field. The scientific and reasonable testing program can not only provide correct basis for decision making, but also make full use of resources and reduce the cost of product development. Hence, how to make full use of products’ historical information to develop a short-term efficient pilot program has become a key-problem to be solved in ADT technology. This chaptere proposes the Bayesian optimal design of step-stress accelerated degradation testing (SSADT) based on Gamma process and relative entropy. Firstly, we briefly describe the applicability of Gamma process and the relative entropy in ADT, and the degradation model and relative entropy’s application method are given. Secondly, under the framework of Bayesian theory, we study the Gamma degradation process based SSADT optimal design method by using maximize the relative entropy as the optimization goals and test variables as the optimization design constraints. Finally, we use a 3-steps bulb’s SSADT to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The example shows that the method of this chapter is fast and efficient which can comprehensively use the prior information to work out the optimal pilot program.

Xiaoyang Li, Tianji Zou, Yu Fan
A Distributed Intelligent Maintenance Approach Based on Artificial Immune Systems

Maintenance services logistics for wide geographically dispersed applications, such as oil transfer systems via pipelines or waste water treatment, have high costs and standard approaches usually lead to sub-optimal solutions. These systems are composed by a huge number of devices, often placed in inaccessible areas with a large distance between them. In such applications autonomous Intelligent Maintenance System (IMS) are capable to estimate their health conditions, can be used to forecast maintenance needs and to optimize maintenance schedule, therefore reducing the overall costs. Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) are a set of algorithms inspired by bio-immune systems that have features suitable for applications in IMS. AIS have distributed and parallel processing that could be useful to model large production systems. This chapter proposes an architecture for a Distributed IMS using Artificial Immune Systems concepts to face the challenges described and explore in-site learning. Each equipment has its own embedded AIS, performing a local diagnosis. If a new fault mode is detected, this information is evaluated and classified as a new non-self pattern, and included in the “vaccine”. In this way, what is learned by one AIS can be propagated to the others. This proposal is modeled and implemented using multi-agent systems, where every autonomous IMS is mapped to a set of local agents, while the communication and decision process between IMSs are mapped to global agents. The chapter also describes the preliminary results deriving from the application of the proposed approach to a case study.

Marcos Zuccolotto, Luca Fasanotti, Sergio Cavalieri, Carlos Eduardo Pereira
Towards Ontology-Based Modeling of Technical Documentation and Operation Data of the Engineering Asset

Management of engineering assets within an organization is a crucial interdisciplinary approach that aims to optimize their performance and guarantee their overall effectiveness through efficient decision making. This task is always largely supported by official technical documentation created by the asset manufacturer which describes in detail the asset’s functionality, architecture as well all necessary information such as testing, operation and maintenance specifications. This valuable information has to be accessible and comprehensive since it essentially dictates the target asset configuration, operation and maintenance modes and strategies in order to guarantee the asset’s performance and availability. However, current technical documentations mainly consist of textual and graphical documents that often are poorly written and constructed, misleading, unavailable, outdated and are read by users with as little effort as possible. This results in a poor connection of the operating asset with its original documentation that prevents the asset from reaching its full potential. In this work, we will propose the new concept of using ontologies as a form of documentation that accompanies the official technical documentation and is created by the manufacturer and provided to the customer. We will also propose the use of a generic asset management ontology model that asset users can be based on to create their own domain asset ontology. Finally, we will demonstrate with examples how the use of the ontology and its reasoning mechanism is ideal to identify potential problems in the operation, configuration and maintenance of the asset, as well as potentially discover areas for improvement. We expect that eventually this concept will gather all the knowledge necessary to assist in the decision making process in order to improve the asset’s availability, longevity and quality of operations.

Andreas Koukias, Dražen Nadoveza, Dimitris Kiritsis
Optimal Policy Study on Reliability-Centered Preventive Maintenance for a Single-Equipment System

Because of demanding higher operational efficiency and safety in industrial systems, system maintenance trends to the direction of high speed, high load and high automation. Reliability-centered preventive maintenance schedule plays an important role in production, but it is always a complex task to make such a plan. In this paper, the optimization of reliability-centered preventive maintenance (PM) for a single-equipment system can be proposed. In order to reduce downtime loss, several PM actions are performed together using the threshold for opportunity PM. By using Markov decision process method, the transition probability matrix for different PM actions can be obtained, and then the optimal combination problem on PM strategy can be developed. Finally, the optimal PM schedule which can provide the desired levels of reliability to a single-component system and minimize maintenance cost can be obtained. A case is used to demonstrate the implementation and potential applications of the proposed method.

Q. M. Liu, M. Dong, W. Y. Lv
Optimal Burn-in Policy for Highly Reliable Products Using Inverse Gaussian Degradation Process

Burn-in test is a manufacturing procedure implemented to identify and eliminate units with infant mortality before they are shipped to the customers. The traditional burn-in test, collecting event data over a short period of time, is rather inefficient. This problem can be solved if there is a suitable quality characteristic (QC) whose degradation over time can be related to the lifetime of the product. Optimal burn-in policies have been discussed in the literature assuming that the underlying degradation path follows a Wiener process or a gamma process. However, the degradation paths of many products may be more appropriately modeled by an inverse Gaussian process which exhibits a monotone increasing pattern. Here, motivated by the numerous merits of the inverse Gaussian process, we first propose a mixed inverse Gaussian process to describe the degradation paths of the products. Next, we present a decision rule for classifying a unit as typical or weak. A cost model is used to determine the optimal burn-in duration and the optimal cut-off level. A simulation study is carried out to illustrate the proposed procedure.

Mimi Zhang, Zhisheng Ye, Min Xie
Condition Based Maintenance and Operation of Wind Turbines

With application of advanced sensing technology, the condition based maintenance and operation has been made possible to many industrial systems. In a wind turbine, there are a few hundreds of sensing signals used to monitor the component performance and operational condition. The condition information is utilized in operational control of wind turbines and the wind farm in order to reduce the down time and Cost of Energy (CoE). In this chapter, a framework of condition based maintenance and operation of wind turbines is presented. This framework starts with data collection of sensing signals through SCADA and includes data processing and modeling, failure pattern recognition, remaining useful life/health condition prediction, load prediction (prediction of wind trend), integrated decision making for maintenance and operation of wind turbines and the wind farm, and maintenance planning. The research challenges involved in each step of the framework are discussed. The framework presented in this chapter serves as a guideline which is also useful to other systems.

Tieling Zhang, Richard Dwight, Khaled El-Akruti
Status of Using, Manufacturing and Testing of Ethylene Pyrolysis Furnace Tubes in China

In this paper, the problems of short service life, main failure modes and failure mechanisms of ethylene pyrolysis furnace tubes in China were summed up through service condition survey on ethylene pyrolysis furnace tubes in the domestic nine petrochemical corporations, compared with the situation of two ethylene enterprises in the developed countries. Chemical composition, tensile properties at room temperature and high-temperature stress rupture properties of furnace tubes and fittings were obtained through experiments performed on furnace tubes and fittings from six furnace tube manufacturing enterprises. The revision suggestion of centrifugally cast alloy tubes standard and the relationship between newly manufactured furnace tubes and fittings performance and serviced furnace tube failure modes were also discussed in present article.

T. Chen, X. D. Chen, Y. R. Lu, Z. B. Ai, Z. C. Fan
Improving Concrete Durability for Sewerage Applications

Concrete is a widely adopted construction material in sewerage applications such as concrete pipes, manholes, box culverts, treatment tanks, and sewage conveyance tunnels. However, the contaminants in sewage may cause physical and chemical attacks to the concrete. In particular, the biogenic sulphuric acid attack poses a great threat to the concrete. This would shorten the service life of concrete and necessitate more frequent repairs and rehabilitations, thereby increasing the life-cycle cost of the sewerage infrastructure. As the prime solution to this problem, the authors advocate the development of

sewerage concrete

by improving the durability of concrete against sewerage attack. This chapter addresses the possible ways to improve the durability of concrete against sewerage attack, including the use of protective coatings, better concrete mix design (or more specifically mix design to improve the biogenic sulphuric acid resistance of concrete), and use of corrosion inhibitors.

P. L. Ng, A. K. H. Kwan
Successful Reduction of Non-revenue Water (NRW)

Sino French Water, affiliated company of Suez Environnement, invests and establishes joint ventures (JVs) with local water companies in China to improve their managerial and operational efficiencies. There are more than 26 Sino French JVs spread all over China. The success story of NRW reduction from 35 to 5 % in Tanzhou took 18 years. This success is largely due to Suez Environnement global approach and expertise on NRW management. The successful actions performed in Tanzhou can be divided into five phases and include both managerial and technical changes in the Company. (1) One of the first actions taken in 1995 was the replacement of customer meters that were previously randomly chosen. The replacement of these meters by accredited meter suppliers and standardizing supplier selection lead to drop in NRW of 22 % in two years. (2) From the success of the first two years, a set of management procedures and standardizations were put in place in 1997. Additional income from accurate metering allows investing in a network rehabilitation, which brought the NRW further down to 13 % by 2002. (3) Between 2002 and 2005 the NRW actually went up. Investigations in the production meter and the establishment of a leak detection and valve maintenance team finally helped stabilize the NRW situation at around 12.5 % by 2005. (4) Applying Aqua Circle tool since 2007 allowed Tanzhou to further understand NRW and how other indicators, besides percentage, were critical. (5) Between 2007 and 2013, a combination of advance technologies (DMAs, PMAs, advance acoustic loggers, Helium gas) and management systems (GIS, hydraulic model) has driven Tanzhou to an extremely low, yet sustainable NRW of 4 %. Tanzhou experience is a valuable example of NRW reduction and asset management for Sino French Water and Suez Environnement. Reducing and maintaining a low NRW is a constant challenge and never-ending activity.

Sheng JIN, Jinghui TANG
Identifying Key Performance Indicators for Engineering Facilities in Commercial Buildings—A Focus Group Study in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a vibrant city with numerous commercial buildings that are large in scale and good in quality. Keeping or enhancing the value of these buildings in the long run relies on the satisfactory performance of their engineering facilities. To ensure the effective management of the operation and maintenance (O&M) of these facilities, it is necessary to measure their input resources and outcome performance. Since a holistic scheme that can evaluate the performance of engineering facilities in commercial buildings in Hong Kong was not available, a research study has been undertaken in an attempt to develop such a scheme. Forming part of the study, a focus group meeting that aimed at identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) for representing the performance of the engineering facilities was convened with the participation of highly experienced and professional O&M experts. This paper reports on the arrangement of this focus group study, the design of its data collection tool, the process of the discussion among the experts, and the ways in which the KPIs were shortlisted. Future works needed for completing the development of the scheme are also described.

C. S. Man, Joseph H.K. Lai
Asset Management Decisions—Based on System Thinking and Data Analysis

Asset related data is collected in several information systems (e.g. enterprise resource management (ERP) and computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) systems) at industrial plants. Information systems including asset related data are typically used for operational level decisions (e.g. creating maintenance work orders) but maintenance history data is also valuable when making asset management level decisions (e.g. investment decisions). Even though there is a huge amount of stored data, tacit knowledge is needed for risk conscious asset decisions both for supplementing the data contained in IT-systems and for creating the understanding of the production system itself and its interrelationships. The paper describes how data collected from ERP and CMMS system can be utilized when improving operational efficiency and researching investment opportunities and evaluating investment options.

Helena Kortelainen, Susanna Kunttu, Pasi Valkokari, Toni Ahonen
Executing Sustainable Business in Practice—A Case Study on How to Support Sustainable Investment Decisions

Too often, B2B negotiations only look at the purchasing cost and do not take the costs and effects on the environment of the whole life cycle of the product into account. Products that have less impact on the environment often have a higher purchasing price. It is generally believed that when a customer can see the estimates of the use period costs, he can accept the higher purchasing price more easily. This paper describes a practical LCC tool developed for life cycle cost calculations and how this kind of tool can be used by manufacturers in developing their own product portfolios and selling their products. For manufacturers, LCC calculations can reveal weak points of their solutions. In negotiations with customers, the LCC calculation indicates the kind of value they will obtain in the long run and guides them to choose products that cause less harm to the environment and have financial benefits.

Susanna Kunttu, Markku Reunanen, Juha Raukola, Kari Frankenhaeuser, Jaana Frankenhaeuser
Managing Modern Sociotechnical Systems: New Perspectives on Human-Organization—Technological Integration in Complex and Dynamic Environments

Modern sociotechnical systems (SSs) are becoming increasingly advanced, complex, boundary-less, and technology-dominant systems that have major economic, societal and environmental implications. Digital technologies are enabling us to develop systems with various levels of complexities and interconnections involving different elements. This creates new ways of organizing work, new work processes, for instance: creating closer cooperation across organizational and geographical borders and this trend is likely to increase. Complexities are associated not only with the large scale hardware and software infrastructures, but also with the even more complex issues involved in human and organizational behaviours and characteristics. This implies that there are many hidden risks under the modern systems development and deployment process, and subsequently the potential for serious events are considerable. A major area for study in this context is the establishment of a seamless connection between the characteristics of the individual components (at micro-level) and the macro-behaviour of the complex SSs. Given the complexity of the systems involved, use of classical/traditional approaches (e.g. linear relations of causality) alone to understand the behaviour and performance of these systems are quite challenging, if not extremely limited in use. We need new perspectives to understand the behaviours and interactions in wider context, so that the new perspectives can capture the complex issues that influence Human-Organization-Technological (HOT) conditions within such systems, can emerge. This paper elaborates on an approach that can provide the basis for micro-macro integration to reduce vulnerabilities based on a better awareness (i.e. system thinking) taking into account the dynamic and complex context from a new perspective.

Haftay H. Abraha, Jayantha P. Liyanage
Decision Support for Operations and Maintenance of Offshore Wind Parks

The world needs cleaner energy, and it needs more to keep up with the growing demand globally. Renewable energy can provide long-term and low emission energy, and wind energy has a large potential. Offshore wind energy capacity in the EU have grown from zero in 1990 to 4 GW in 2011, meeting 0.4 % of electricity demand in the European Union, and the aim is to have 150 GW installed capacity by 2030. However, revenue is an issue in order to make offshore wind energy economically viable in the future, hence, costs must be lowered and at the same time availability must be increased. This paper presents a simulation model developed for research experiments and decision support. It is based on an ongoing project in the North Sea region that investigates configurations of operational infrastructure and work management systems under different governing conditions. The project closely collaborates with one of the largest offshore wind park operators in North Sea, and aims at the use of agent-based and discrete event simulation to experiment with different wind park development scenarios, and to eventually provide decision support for wind park developers and—operators. Despite the use of different modeling techniques in offshore wind sector, the potential benefits of agent-based simulation models in operational planning and work management is still to be explored. The simulation model developed in this paper is based on a multi-method paradigm involving both discrete-event and agent-based modeling. This multi-method approach helps largely in limiting the set of assumptions as well as in managing the drawbacks associated with a specific simulation technique. The paper intends to explain the simulation model developed, discuss the validity of the model and how such models can provide information for decision making in planning and operating offshore wind parks.

Ole-Erik Vestøl Endrerud, Jayantha P. Liyanage
Dealing with Uncertainty in the Asset Replacement Decision

To prevent dangerous situations from gas leaks, operators of the distribution grids in the Netherlands are required to inspect all pipelines for leakages once every 5 years. Leaks are generally fixed when encountered. However, given that the distribution grid has been in use for many years, it may be wiser to replace leaking sections of the grid. The right choice depends on the costs of replacement versus the expected costs (including the monetized risks) of future repairs. The number of future repairs to expect is uncertain, especially given that the asset is ageing and the failure rate may be rising. In the paper, decision making on a representative case is explored. In the basic approach (using past performance for future failures) repairing is marginally better than replacing. However, assuming an increasing failure rate because of ageing will tip the balance in favour of replacement at some (uncertain) moment in future. The decision problem is thus transformed from a choice between alternatives into timing one specific alternative. To find the optimal moment given the uncertain development of the failure rate both sensitivity analysis and real options analysis are applied. Different assumptions and different decision methods result in different optima. However, from a total cost of ownership perspective the differences are relatively small and they hardly justify the analysis effort: any choice will be acceptable. The paper thus reaches the (surprising) conclusion that it may be better to flip a coin than to try to find the best solution.

Ype Wijnia
Assessment of Engineering Asset Management in the Public Sector

The importance of asset management in the public sector takes on new significance as capitalism confronts the modern era realities of globalisation and sustainability. The sustainability of environmental, financial and geopolitical systems based on ‘real’ value demands innovative ways of managing both built environment assets and natural resources. In most countries, the public sector is the custodian of the largest base, especially of infrastructure assets, and with increasing emphasis on accrual accounting, this paper briefly describes a framework for the assessment of engineering assets management in the public sector.

Joe Amadi-Echendu
Is Good Governance Conceptualised in Indonesia’s State Asset Management Laws?

Indonesia exemplified its enthusiasm in reforming state asset management policies and practices through the establishment of the Directorate General of State Assets in 2006. The Directorate General of State Assets have stressed the new direction that it is taking state asset management laws through the introduction of Republic of Indonesia Law Number 38 Year 2008; an amended regulation overruling Republic of Indonesia Law Number 6 Year 2006 on Central/Regional Government State Asset Management. Law number 38/2008 aims to further exemplify good governance principles and puts forward a ‘the highest and best use of assets’ principle in state asset management. However, there is still ambiguity in the meaning of ‘the conceptualisation of good governance within state asset management’—particularly in regards to the definition, context, extent, examples, and guidelines. This paper examines state asset management regulations in three Indonesian regional government case studies: DIY Yogyakarta, Gorontalo Province, and DKI Jakarta. This paper introduces the ‘Good Governance Evaluator Tool’, informed by Miles and Hubermann (1994) work in tabulation and matrix data analysis tool. To facilitate the process of good governance conceptualisation evaluation, it is empirical that each state asset management law, policies, technical guidelines from each regional government is evaluated against the five good governance principles: accountability, transparency, efficiency, stakeholder participation, and regulatory compliance. Through this process which good governance principles are conceptualised, the level in which it is discussed within each clause of a state management law, and the level in which this conceptualisation is understood by state asset managers; can be mapped. This paper emphasises the variance, and at times contradictory nature, in which good governance principles are conceptualised in Indonesia’s state asset management laws. As such this paper informs future asset management policy makers of the quality in which asset governance is exemplified in current laws and technical guidelines.

Diaswati Mardiasmo, Charles Sampford
A Pandora Box Effect to State Asset Management Reform in DIY Yogyakarta

Indonesia’s public policy reform in state asset management ignited from the publication of unfavourable quarterly external audit results, in which many regional governments achieved low results. It is therefore interesting to observe that after the introduction of said reform in 2006 there is slow improvement of the quarterly external audit results, inducing increased concerns as to the level in which it new state asset management laws and principles are understood and implemented by regional government (Padirman 2009). Mardiasmo (2012) posed the question of ‘what are the influencing factors to implementation of reformed state asset management laws’; in which the ‘voices of reason’—bureaucratic culture, political history, and traditional culture—are identified as a potential explanation to stagnancy in reform. The purpose of this paper is to further analyse the potential role of ‘voices of reason’ in the conceptualisation, introduction, socialisation, and implementation of newly reformed state asset management laws and regulations; with the aim to determine whether or not ‘voices of reason’ does play a role, and if so, how. Mardiasmo’s (2012) work suggested as such, however its validity and in what form does such influence take shape, is not yet known. In achieving the above objective, this paper will provide an in-depth discussion and analysis of one of the main case studies in Mardiasmo’s (2012) work, DIY Yogyakarta Special Region, outlining their version of state asset management laws and regulations; and elements that influences the conceptualisation and implementation of said laws. Further this paper will draw upon qualitative data (available laws and reports, interview transcripts, and observation notes) collected during the period of June–July 2010. Through a meta-analysis and thematic approach this paper creates an ethnography of DIY Yogyakarta’s journey (thus far) in interpreting and moulding expected international and national standards to sit comfortably within its ‘voices of reason’.

Diaswati Mardiasmo, Paul Barnes
Asset Management Reform Through Policies, Regulations, and Standards: The Need for ‘Soft’ Interface

Asset management practices within a country or a region are under continuous reform, particularly with the introduction of new ‘hard controls’—rules, law, regulations, and policies, in various sectors. They are expected to provide the necessary foundation for safety, efficiency and other performance needs as well as the frame conditions for managing assets. To a certain extent they also reflect the expectations of international standards. Despite the availability of abundance of documents, organizations tend to spend much time in reality, for instance on analysing the minute detail of policy and regulation, to ensure the compliance as well as validity in terms of expected results. In the modern roles of technical and operational managers, the efforts involving compliance has become a daunting task due to various conditions and complexities in organizational environments. This sheds the light right on the asset reformation process, particularly in terms of feasibility and adoptability Empirical research of 76 regional government officers, acting as state asset managers, in twelve Indonesian provinces and district governments confirmed this standpoint. It was found that despite the availability of comprehensive set of laws, regulations, and technical guidelines; there is a high level of uncertainty, ambiguity, inconsistency, and ultimately non-compliance in asset management practice in these regional governments. It seems that there are other types of absorbed/embedded complexities that tend to remain implicit in the nature of transforming systems, and thus far has been difficult to interpret due to lack of knowledge or understanding of these hidden interfaces that asset managers may have inherit. For instance, a closer analysis of regional government officers reveals other variables in play: ingrained asset management culture, political history of government, religion, and the capability of the asset manager itself; all of which impact the level in which changes in the system are received, interpreted, processed, and implemented. What this suggests is that there may have been too much focus on perfectly ‘mechanising a hard control’ through policies, regulations, and standards. This implies little or no focus on core attributes of the system in which implementation takes place, and even more on addressing the needs of those who bear major stakes during as well as after implementation process. Thus, this paper argues that acknowledgement and development of ‘softer’ measures and instruments are just as important, if not even more so, as ‘hard controlled’ approach to realize the best benefit of ongoing reforms in Asset management practices.

Diaswati Mardiasmo, Jayantha Liyanage
Biodiesel Production Status: Are the Present Policies Good Enough for the Growth of Biodiesel Sector in India?

Worldwide fossil fuel resources such as crude oil, natural gas, coal are decreasing at an alarming rate due to the increasing demand for the fossil fuels across the whole world. More than 75 % of the total crude oil consumed in India is imported from foreign countries. The demand for diesel oil in India is increasing at a staggering rate of 7.5 % per annum. The Indian economy is therefore widely affected by the increasing prices of the diesel oil as most of the heavy vehicle transport in India is run on the diesel engines. So in regards to the present energy crisis and environmental concerns relating to the use and depletion of fossil fuels, the alternative fuel of Biodiesel is gaining importance worldwide as a substitute fuel for diesel in vehicle engines. Due to the increasing dependency of the country on the fossil fuel imports, the Government of India has also made concerned efforts in this regard and launched various ambitious national and state level programmes to promote the biodiesel production and usage in the past decade or so. The recently announced ‘National Policy on biofuels’ of India (2009) has marked a blending target of 20 % for the biodiesel fuel with that of the conventional diesel fuel by the year 2017. In spite of all these efforts taken by the government in the past decade, the development of the biofuels production sector has been rather slow in India. India is still to attain the 5 % biodiesel blending target that was proposed to be achieved by the year end of the 2010 in the report of National Biofuels Mission in the year 2003. In this chapter literature we have tried to assess the different reasons behind the stunted Biodiesel production sector growth and development in India. The current production potential of biodiesel obtained from major feed-stocks available in India has been studied. The possible impacts of the present national and state level policies on the biodiesel production and usage in different parts of the country have been assessed. Also, various state as well as national level policy reforms pertaining to the biodiesel production in the country have been suggested, so as to improve the production and usage of biodiesel fuel in the near future.

N. Awalgaonkar, S. Tibdewal, V. Singal, J. Mathew, A. K. Karthikeyan
A Nominal Stress Based Reliability Analysis Method for Dependent Fatigue and Shock Processes

The product which has fatigue induced failure mechanism always suffers complex fatigue loads accompanied by random shock loads. The existence of shocks can increase the risk of failure because it can not only cause shock damages or shock failure, but also impact the fatigue process. This chapter discussed the dependent relationship between fatigue and shock processes when high cycle fatigue and low-energy shocks are involved. The uncertainty of external loads and internal properties are considered. The reliability of fatigue process is developed with the stochastic fatigue loads and corresponding stochastic fatigue life model based on the impact of shocks. The reliability of fatigue process is also modelled with the assumption of HPP and the effect of fatigue damages. Overall competitive reliability model is proposed with an engineering case of actuator cylinder.

Hongxia Chen, Yunxia Chen
Study of Li-Ion Cells Accelerated Test Based on Degradation Path

According to the characteristics of long life, high reliability of Li-ion cells, a constant stress accelerated degradation test method is put forward to assessing reliability and predict lifetime of Li-ion cells. First, FMEA analysis is carried out on Li-ion cells, and the most common failure mode is capacity reduction which the temperature is the most important accelerated stress. Second, the accelerated degradation model and the parameters degradation path model of Li-ion cells are determined, and the accelerated degradation test of Li-ion cells is designed through the analysis of sensitive stresses. With the method of Bartlett statistics, the degradation mechanism consistency boundary is determined on the base of parameter degeneration path in order to obtain the accelerated stress level. The reliability of Li-ion cells is assessed based on pseudo lifetime.

YunLong Huang, XiaoGang Li
Applicability Study on Fault Diagnostic Methods for Analog Electronic Systems

In this article, a comprehensive investigation to the current fault diagnostic methods for analog circuits is conducted. The ideas of these methods are described. Some key capabilities of these methods for analog circuits are taken into account, which include the capabilities of detection, location and identification, the capabilities of detecting single fault or multiple faults and soft faults or hard faults, the capabilities of diagnosing linear circuits or nonlinear circuits, etc. Then, what kinds of methods are applied to the built-in test (BIT) for electronic systems is investigated. At last, summary and future work on the research are presented.

Rongbin Guo, Shunong Zhang, Peng Gao, Jiaming Liu
An AcciMap Analysis on the China-Yongwen Railway Accident

An AcciMap is a multi-layered causal diagram that arranges the various causes of an accident in terms of their causal remoteness from the accident. This chapter applied an AcciMap to analyse the China-Yongwen railway accident for a more comprehensive view of the accident. Some improvement measures were proposed to prevent similar accidents in the future on the base of this analysis. With the focus of the railway conditions, railway stations, dispatching office, the train drivers and the maintenance personnel, an AcciMap analysis was performed to describe the entire accident trajectory and assemble the contributing factors into a coherent causal diagram that illustrates the interrelationships between them. As a result, some new causes were recognized compared with other analysis methods based on STAMP. Through this study, more critical points and suggestions are provided for enhancing the safety management of Motor Train Unit.

Lu Chen, Yuan Zhao, Tingdi Zhao
Studying the Potentials of Physical Asset Management of Hybrid Base Stations in Telecommunication Companies

The importance of energy related topics has been increased during last years, and it will be in future for sure. In particular energy cost is estimated to increase; further on one of the hot topics today is also the global climate change, which is due to increased CO

2

and other greenhouse gases emissions. To reduce these impacts decrease of usage of fossil fuels can be a proper lever, and can be obtained both by improving energy efficiency and by using renewable energy resources. On the other hand, focusing specifically in the Telecom sector by introduction of Android, iPhone, iPad, Kindle and social network such as Facebook, demand for cellular data traffic has grown significantly. Indeed, Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) consume a maximum portion of the total energy used in a cellular system (around 60 %). Eventually, it is known that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) already represents about 2–2.5 % of total carbon emissions and this is expected to increase every year. The most convenient ways to reduce energy consumption of BTS is usage of renewable energy sources (wind and sun).This is recognized by existing theory and practice. Available literature covers the performances of Hybrid Base Station (HBTS), site indicators, on one side, and, on the other side, the necessity of the Telecom Company to reduce energy consumption and GHG emission on sustainable way. These are the two extremes of this knowledge domain: more precisely, on one side, there is a literature related to the vendors of HBTS and, on the other side, there is literature dedicated to Telecom Companies as technology users. But there is no bond and, in fact, insufficient knowledge technology management. Indeed what we see as a missing link here is the availability of a clear information and design of the practical “guideline” for implementation of HBTS in a Telecom company. The literature of Physical Asset Management (PAM) offers good references for an empirical research to unveil such missing link. In particular, based on the holistic lifecycle approach, that is a relevant concept of PAM. We planned to develop an on field research with Telecom companies, to understand how the technology is managed in practice. On-going case study provided some insights to us during writing this paper. Hence, the research will aim at assessing every single step of HBTS implementation in a Telecom Company. This approach will cover all the Asset Life Cycle stages, ranging from Concept and Project Approval to Decommissioning and Disposal, so to let emerge existing practices in a broad range of activities. This paper will focus on the whole architecture established for the empirical research, focusing initially on the literature survey used as background, which may help then showing the structure of the questionnaire used for the research and its first results after an initial validation with Telecom experts.

Nikola Asurdzic, Macro Macchi
Application of Feature Extraction Based on Fractal Theory in Fault Diagnosis of Bearing

Fractal theory can be applied to state recognition and fault diagnosis of bearing for the nonlinear property of rotation machinery’s vibration signal. In this paper, a feature extraction method based on fractal theory is introduced and the fractal feature is extracted by computing the correlation dimension of vibration signals in different conditions. Correlation dimension can be determined by G-P algorithm and relevant parameters’ selection methods are discussed. C–C method is used to calculate the time delay of phase space reconstruction. The example of bearing shows that the correlation of bearing in fault condition is much higher than that in normal condition, which can help to recognize bearing’s state and discover bearing’s fault promptly.

Wentao Li, Xiaoyang Li, Tongmin Jiang
Performance Monitoring with Application of Reliability Growth Analysis

Reliability growth analysis is a popular tool in monitoring reliability changes over time. The methods used include Duane plots and the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA) model. The reliability growth analysis is traditionally applied to the time domain of failure. The amplitude of failure is not considered. For equipment or processes with same MTBF should not be treated with the same priority without looking into loss of opportunity in wealth creation. This research proposes the application of reliability growth method to failure losses in unit of production loss for monitoring changes in magnitude of production loss due to failure events. In conjunction with reliability growth in time domain, a new analytical visualisation of reliability assessment, named Reliability Quadrant Graph, is proposed. This research provides a new way for high level reliability performance monitoring.

Allen S. B. Tam
Design for Probe-Type Fault Injector and Application Study of PHM Case

Prognostics and health management (PHM) is a highlight of current research in modern industrial equipment fields. Aiming at the requirement of verification of PHM system’s fault diagnosis capability, a fault injection device is designed and it consists of the digital control unit, fault injection unit, failure mode switching unit, channel switch unit, a status indication unit, data acquisition unit, communication unit and control software unit. The procedures of fault injection experiment are expounded in this chapter. Then a control computer system is applied to a fault injection experiment based on the probe-type fault injector, and the capabilities of fault diagnosis of PHM system are verified. Experiment results show that the probe-type fault injector can be effectively used to verify the PHM fault diagnosis capability of electronic systems and it is non-destructive and easy for operation.

Jun-you Shi, Xiao-tian Wang, Hong-tao Liu
A Method of Establishing the Dependency Integrated Matrix Based on Diagonally Dominant Fuzzy Transitive Matrix

For the purpose of detecting the state of systems or equipment, and isolating the internal faults in the field of testability, a method of establishing the dependency integrated matrix based on diagonally dominant fuzzy transitive matrix is proposed. The principle of dependency integrated matrix is introduced. On the basis of fuzzy transitive modeling towards the faults and the signs of systems or equipment under detection, the fuzzy transitive matrix is achieved [

1

]. Furthermore, according to the diagonally dominant matrix, the zero rows (rows with all zero elements) of dependency matrix are settled, and the dependency integrated matrix applied to fault detection is proposed based on the transitive relationship between the faults and the symptoms with the maximum degree of membership [

2

,

3

]. The flow of establishment for dependency integrated model is described in detail. The statistics of a certain circuit are taken as an example for application, which demonstrates this method is feasible and effective.

Tong Zhang, Jun-You Shi, Yin-Yin Peng
Understanding and Evaluating IT Budgets and Funding

The average firm spends over two-thirds of the IT budget on maintaining the present infrastructure and architecture. The IT budget in turn makes up between 30 and 50 % of the capital expenditure of a firm annually. An appreciation of the models would enhance an understanding of funding for new IT initiatives and/or making improved decisions on IT investments and operations. In an era where IT infrastructure is essential, a sound IT portfolio is important. This chapter explores the necessities of maintaining a firm’s current IT health, investing in future capacity and improving the competitive position of the firm. This chapter tries to suggest how an organisation can shift from barely maintaining the current IT infrastructure, much to the chagrin of everyone involved, to an industry leading, value generating and sound IT infrastructure. This chapter first examines four models for Budgeting and Funding for Information Technology in a firm (Charge Based, Lord and Master, Revenue Percentage, Absolute Outsourcing). Then it proceeds to develop a speculative framework to assist IT budget and funding. There is evidence that the first four models (Charge-based, Lord and Master, Revenue Percentage and Absolute Outsourcing). Charge-based is a model where the IT unit is treated outright as a service provider and paid for services implemented. In Lord and Master, a firm’s IT unit has absolute control over implementation and execution of IT services. Revenue Percentage is where the IT unit compete for budgets in the form of a percentage of the organisation’s overall revenue/profits. Absolute Outsourcing is also a service-charge based system; the only difference being that there is no defined IT unit within firm. IT needs are outsourced to an IT firm outside of the organisation and services rendered, charged back to the organisation. The impact an IT department has, whatever model it uses to exist, on organizational activities is un-questionable. The study of these models will help firms gather knowledge as to where they stand and also analyse if they need a change in their IT related financial environment. The proposed models are evaluated on: how each model works, how much is allocated as an IT budget, how the financial relationship of IT with other departments and stake holders functions, and implications on organizational learning. Using the funding and budgeting models as building blocks future research is welcomed on governance, change management as well as operational, day to day practical decision making which has relevance to both academic and practitioners.

Indira Venkatraman, Paul T. Shantapriyan
Virtual Test-Based Reliability Evaluation of Airborne Electronic Product

In the development of airborne product reliability, the reliability of electronic products is an important factor to determine the reliability of aviation equipment. Based on the character and practicability of components in airborne product, virtual test technology is used to simulate the vibration and thermal stress that the airborne products are actually exposed to, and electronic component’s life can be obtained through the reliability prediction software CALCE PWA. In terms of the failure life, the calculating methods of failure distribution for component level, board level and device level are proposed, which use single point distribution fitting, Monte Carlo random sampling and multipoint distribution fusion, to get the reliability indices such as MTBF etc. Based on these study, the evaluation methods relating to airborne product from component level to device level are established.

Cheng Qi, Li Chuanri, Guo Ying
Feature Signal Extraction Based on Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition for Multi-fault Bearings

Multi-fault diagnosis for bearings is a challenge task. It is difficult to identify all the features from measured vibration signals when there is more than one bearing fault, especially, when some fault feature at the early stage is relatively weak and easily immersed in noise and other signals. The ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method inherits the advantage of the popular empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method and can adaptively decompose a multi-component signal into a number of different bands of signal components called intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). In this chapter, the strategies of parameter optimization and signal component combination are combined with the normal EEMD to enhance its performance on signal processing. A vibration signal collected from a multi-fault bearing was used to verify the effectiveness of the enhanced EEMD method. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can accurately extract the feature signal; meanwhile, it makes the physical meaning of each IMF clear.

W. Guo, K. S. Wang, D. Wang, P. W. Tse
The Influence of Corrosion Test on Performances of Printed Circuit Board Coatings

In this chapter, the failure of acrylic coatings has been studied systematically by fungus test, salt fog test and humidity test, and then we designed a laboratory test to simulate marine climate. We analyze failure of acrylic coating and compare laboratory test with field test by SEM (scanning electron microscope) and EDS (energy dispersive spectrometer), The results show that there is a good correlation between laboratory test and field test in failure mechanism and failure mode.

Chengyu Ju, Xiaohui Wang, Run Zhu, Xiaoming Ren
Comparative Analysis of Printed Circuit Board Coating on Corrosion Test

In this paper, four kinds of coating (acrylic coating, polyurethane coating, silicone coating, ParyleneC coating) on printed circuit board have been studied in terms of moisture absorption, insulation resistance and surface morphology by fungus test, salt fog test and humidity test. The results show humidity test has largely effect on coating than salt fog test; the smallest effect is fungus test. ParyleneC coating is the best material by the three corrosion test, the second is silicone coating, the third is polyurethane coating, and the last one is acrylic coating. What is more, the weakest parts on acrylic coating are the edge of the solder paste, through-hole and so on.

Chengyu Ju, Xiaohui Wang, Run Zhu, Xiaoming Ren
Improvements in Computed Order Tracking for Rotating Machinery Fault Diagnosis

This paper introduces two improved procedures in computed order tracking analysis which enhances the ability of the method for rotating machinery fault diagnosis. Firstly, the method for the improvement of resolution of the resultant order spectrum is introduced. Secondly, an alternative method to computed order tracking analysis which avoids time to angle domain transformation for measured data is discussed. The two improvements enhance abilities to computed order tracking analysis in terms of better order spectrum resolution and alternative implementation procedure to obtain order spectrum of the signals. The proposed improvements to order tracking analysis are useful for rotating machine condition monitoring and are expected for further applications in real practices.

K. S. Wang, D. S. Luo, W. Guo, P. S. Heyns
Application of Reliability Growth Model in Step-Down Stress Accelerated Storage Test

Step-down accelerated storage test is equalled to reliability growth, a method of step-down stress accelerated storage test based Army Materiel System Analysis Activity (AMSAA) model is proposed, according to the step-down stress, the mean time between failures (MTBF) under normal stress can be obtained, by using the AMSAA model. First, through the product’s cumulative failure time, cumulative failure numbers and based on AMSAA model, the product’s instantaneous MTBF is shown. Then the step-down stress is divided into n ladders, and there is only one fault under each stress, the joint probability density function is shown by the cumulative failure time of each step-down stress, and the parameters of the AMSAA model are estimated by the maximum likelihood estimation, then the point estimation of the product’s instantaneous MTBF is got. By choosing instantaneous MTBF of certain accelerated stresses and combined respective physical accelerated model, the product’s storage lifetime is estimated. Finally, a case study is performed using this method. The effectiveness of this method is shown, for the point estimation of each parameter is little different. Thus it provides a new evaluation method for step-down accelerated storage test.

YaHui Wang, XiaoGang Li, TaiChun Qin
Wireless Condition Monitoring Integrating Smart Computing and Optical Sensor Technologies

Condition monitoring is increasingly benefitting from the application of emerging technologies, such as mobile computing and wireless sensors, including photonics sensors. The latter can be applicable to diverse application needs, due to their versatility, low costs, installation and operational flexibility, as well as unique safety and reliable operation characteristics in real industrial environments of excessive electromagnetic interference and noise. Coupling the monitoring flexibility offered by photonics technologies, with the data transmission flexibility of wireless networking provides opportunities to develop hybrid wireless sensor solutions, incorporating optical sensors into wireless condition monitoring architectures. This paper presents ongoing work within an integrated architecture for condition monitoring and maintenance management support, exploiting the added value of optical technology, inherently safe with respect to electromagnetic compatibility. The reported results are part of a collaborative project involving technology providers in wireless sensor networking, embedded systems and maintenance engineering, as well as research organizations active on photonics technologies and informatics for wireless and intelligence-enabled engineering asset management. The industrial test cases are from a lifts manufacturing industry, focusing on both production facilities assets, as well as on the end-product. The photonic platform of plastic optical fibers was selected due to its versatility and suitability for rapid customization and prototyping. The platform can serve diverse sensing and monitoring needs, ranging from physical parameters as strain and displacement in machinery parts, to chemical and biochemical monitoring of industrial-grade coolants’ aging. Use of novel nanostructured optical materials together with laser-based micromachining techniques enabled the functional enhancement through rapid prototyping of optical fiber devices towards highly customizable sensors. The integration of the sensing elements within the wireless sensor network architecture offers substantial flexibility for industrial applications.

Christos Emmanouilidis, Christos Riziotis
A Combined Life Prediction Method for Product Based on IOWA Operator

As the rapid development of modern technology, industrial companies have to manufacture high-reliable and long-lifetime products. How to evaluate these indexes is an urgent problem to be solved. Utilizing the product degradation information may be an effective way to solve this issue. However, most of lifetime prediction models in use are mainly based on single prediction model with the shortage of low robustness and accuracy. In this chapter, a combined prediction method based on the performance degradation data by using the induced ordered weighted averaging operator (IOWA) is proposed. We select two better prediction models, which are time series model and BP neural network, to predict the degradation path of product respectively. The IOWA operator can build a new combination prediction method which can overcome the defect of fixed weight coefficients of the traditional combined method. This method can update the weight coefficients dynamically according to the prediction precision of each model. Then the objective function of the error square sum is established with weight coefficients used to combine these prediction methods and integrate the prediction results.

Lei Feng, Xiaoyang Li, Tongmin Jiang, Xiangjun Dang
Bayesian Acceptance Sampling Plan for Exponential Distribution Under Type-I and Type-II Censoring

This paper studies the design method in engineering for Bayesian acceptance sampling plan under exponential distribution. In reliability theory, the exponential distribution is the most basic and common distribution, plan is widely applicable. First, aiming at the two kinds of truncation method (type-I and type-II censoring), we give the Bayesian posterior expression of the producer and consumer risk according to the Average risk criteria and Posterior risk criteria respectively. Second, in the specific analysis, using the Gamma distribution as the prior distribution of failure rate, we obtain the test plan of different truncated modes and the test plan of different risk criteria as well as the classical methods are compared, the results show that the application of Bayes plan can greatly reduce the test cost. Third, the influence of the prior distribution on the Bayes plan is studied.

Pengfei Gao, Xiaoyang Li, Xue Song
An Approach Based on Frequency Domain for Random Vibration Fatigue Life Estimation

According to the structural vibration fatigue characters, a life assessment method is presented. The method is based on the information of the frequency domain of random. Firstly, the frequency response of the structure analysis should be carried out by finite element analysis (FEA) under random vibration load, and the position and the stress response power spectral density (PSD) function can be obtained. Secondly, the life calculation model for the single-stage load is provided based on RC and LCC, and the cumulative damage for the structure on the multi-stage load can be obtained using Miner linear theory. Then the fatigue life of structure can be estimated under random vibration load. Lastly, a case of the life estimation method is presented.

Jing Hailong, Chen Yunxia, Kang Rui
Research on the Wear Life Analysis of Aerohydraulic Spool Valve Based on a Dynamic Wear Model

Leakage due to wear is one of the main failure modes of aero-hydraulic spool valve. This paper established a dynamic wear model based on dynamic system modelling theory. Firstly, the wear mechanism between spool and valve sleeve of aero-hydraulic valve is analysed followed by the verification through observation of the wear morphology of the spool surface by SEM. Secondly, the dynamic wear model is established from three aspects of fractional film defect index, Rms of profile, adhesive wear coefficient based on Archard wear model. Lastly, some qualitative analysis on the wear regularity of aero-hydraulic spool valve is conducted based on the dynamic wear model established.

Liao Xun, Chen Yunxia, Kang Rui
Visualization Workflow Modeling System Research and Development Based on Silverlight

Workflow technology based on computer application environment is one of the production and operations management techniques that currently rapidly developed. A Silverlight-based technology workflow editor design method has been proposed, highlighting its features of visual graphical user interface contrast poor web-based graphical workflow modeling techniques and weak performance defects. Referring Workflow Management Coalition standards and workflow process definition model, we built the workflow management system architecture applied the above workflow editor, and then briefly described development strategies of client application interface, process manager, workflow engine and data storage, and their design interface methods according to XML and WCF technology.

Wang Lei, Yuan Hongjie
Application of Simulation Method in the Structural Failure Analysis of an Airborne Product

The reasons of some structural failures cannot be defined. In the reliability enhancement test of an airborne product, a simulation method has been proposed to calculate fatigue damage of random vibration power density spectrum of the fault point within frequency domain. The exact failure times can be calculated accurately and the most possible failure mechanism can be analyzed. In Sect.

5

(Analysis and Verification), the correctness of the results of the simulation analysis has been verified and an optimization design of the product structure has been proposed.

Demiao Yu, Zhilqiang Li, Shimin Zhai
The Design and Implementation of the Non-electric Product Life Analysis and Calculation Software

Non-electric products, undertaking power, transmission and other tasks, are important parts of the equipment. The normal operation of the non-electrical products is of great importance which leads to an urgent need of the quantitative analysis for life. Generally, the life of a product is predicted by tests, which cost a lot of time and money. Considering the lack of engineering life analysis methods, basic life models are collected through research of failure mechanism and survey on domestic and international data. The models are then classified as a library, based on which, a piece of life analysis and calculation software is designed and implemented. A life model library is built as well as the mapping relationships between life models and typical non-electric products and components by sorting the basic life models. And then a piece of software of life model library is designed. Furthermore, the implementation of the functions is comprehensively introduced from three aspects: project management module, data function module and database management module. Finally, an application of calculating the life of a typical non-electric product is illustrated to prove the software’s practicality and efficiency in engineering. The result of the application can be used to make suggestions for design and improvement of the products.

Z. Li, Y. Chen, R. Kang
Integrating Simulation with Optimization in Emergency Department Management

Nowadays, the hospital Emergency Department (ED) provides new challenges to their decision-makers because of high demands for services, high costs, and limited budget leading to inadequate healthcare resources. In this chapter, we integrated the simulation and optimization technique to address this important management problem in the ED, and we set up a decision support system to help the ED managers to design the optimal healthcare resources’ staffing and scheduling plan in the specific environment. In an ED system model, many different categories of patients may require multiple services through a common sequence. Therefore, each service center has its own costs. The configuration of the resources will affect the overall efficiency of the system directly. So, our main work here is to set up a decision support system for the ED managers to design the optimal configuration of resources with the objective minimize patients LOS and minimize the overall costs separately.

Hainan Guo, Jiafu Tang
RUL Assessment and Construction of Maintenance Strategies for Engineering Objects

Actual trends in the construction of systems of various types of maintenance; rather their choice in a particular situation is usually determined by the technical state of engineering at the time. Accurate information about its operating condition and prognosis of all detected trends to the side of failures or increasing risks or failures are necessary for the correct determining the optimal maintenance strategy and in general strategy of operational service of engineering object. Thus the life cycle of engineering relatively the types of operational service and maintenance methods is divided into several time intervals determined by the conditions of the object and prognosis. Their maintenance sets of measures are determined at each time interval from operating measures of self-maintenance to end of life management: reuse-remanufacture-recycle. Choice of various types of maintenance is more effective at accurate determining the state of engineering at the failure progression timeline. Account of optimization problem of operating costs throughout the life cycle of engineering in many respects is determined by exact definition of engineering positions on the failure progression timeline and the rate of evolution to failure state of engineering at particular time interval. Thus, different types of monitoring for engineering are required for the construction of systems of local RUL assessments. The considered problems of the state and RUL assessments are solved by integration of remote computing PHM clusters and on-board diagnostic systems of engineering object. RUL evaluation methods in the monitoring process at all time stages of the engineering operating are demonstrated in this chapter. Maintenance strategy for all operating phases and some methods of self-maintenance available for use by varying the control parameters of an engineering object are discussed. In particular, the management solutions in order to minimize maintenance costs for certain time intervals of engineering object operating are given.

Alexander Khodos, Aleksandr Kirillov, Sergey Kirillov
The Problem of PHM Cloud Cluster in the Context of Development of Self-maintenance and Self-recovery Engineering Systems

The target problems of PHM computing cluster for different types of maintenance: condition-based maintenance (CBM); predictive maintenance (PdM); self-maintenance and self-recovery, are discussed in this paper. All types of maintenance are determined by the current state of engineering, degree of wear, the duration and conditions of operation. Therefore, various types of maintenance define various financial and time costs. Recent trends in the development of different maintenance strategies are aimed at the creation of self-maintenance and self-recovery engineering systems. However, to support such systems are required new models and methods of determining the technical state of engineering and its prognosis. That is, each of the stages of engineering object maintenance must be supported by appropriate methods of diagnosis of the condition of engineering objects, methods of accurate prognosis and assessment of time intervals of prognosis reliability. Consequently, the problem of supporting various types of maintenance and the development of appropriate formalisms, methods and algorithms to analyse the condition of object and prognosis for each type of maintenance should be included in the PHM problems. PHM problems should represent the universal concept and system of algorithms and rules, capable also to an estimation of efficiency of chosen strategy maintenance, minimization of cost and reduce operating costs. These necessary methods should diagnose condition at all operation phases and estimate time of achievement of borders of each operation phase. Thus, PHM problems and determining the time hierarchy predictors of engineering conditions become the base for the development of maintenance and self-maintenance, but not only that. The paper is a review of actual problems for PHM in the context of the practice of application of computing clusters, algorithms and scenarios for the organization of the global system of development of self-maintenance systems based on of computing clusters are specified. This review is based on testing the PHM hierarchical models and algorithms for the pilot version of the PHM cluster at the analysis of failures of internal combustion engines and mechanisms of high complexity.

Aleksandr Kirillov, Sergey Kirillov, Michael Pecht
Open Issues for Interfaces on Spare Parts Supply Chain Systems: A Content Generation Methodology

This paper proposes a methodology for content generation to visualization interfaces applied spare parts supply chain systems. Case studies in the context of transportation planning for oil and gas industry will be investigated in order to validate the methodology and to analyze the results. The goal is to provide a methodology to manage and integrate the information from different systems in order to present effective data in visualization interfaces of supply chain systems.

Danúbia Espíndola, Ann-Kristin Cordes, Carlos Eduardo Pereira, Bernd Hellingrath, Bernardo Silva, Átila Weis, Marcos Zuccolotto, Silvia Botelho, Nelson Duarte
Research on Wear Behavior Analysis, Modeling and Simulation of the Integrated Control Valve

Integrated control valve in the aircraft control system has an important role to play in, spool valve, apartments and will affect a variety of performance indicators in integrated control valve wear, is one of the major failure mechanism. Based on integrated control valve structure and working principle, analysis of spool valve sleeve wear failure sensitive parts and structural parameters affected by wear. Using AMESIM software to model integrated control valve through modeling and simulation of spool valve sleeve due to wear and changes of structural parameters on performance index of integrated control valve. Finally, is worn to physical failure model, based on deviation of product performance thresholds, calculated integration time control valve failure, to propose an integrated control valve service life prediction method.

Fan Kejia, Xiao Ying, Kang rui
Study on Evaluation Index System of Equipment System Transportability

In recent years, with the extensive application of high-tech, more and more military equipment shows the characteristics such as multi-functional, integrated and multi-system, large-scale. And equipment system mobility requirements are also increasing in the modern war. Bad equipment system transportability will lead to late equipment delivery, reducing transportation efficiency and equipment combat performance. Whether equipment system is able to be transported timely and effectively will directly affect the quick and efficient formation of equipment system combat. So equipment system transportability should be analyzed in order to improve the operational effectiveness of equipment system. Study on equipment system transportability in domestic starts lately and there is no complete description of transport index system. In this chapter, the various factors which effects equipment systems transportability are summarized on the basis of equipment systems transportability analysis. Evaluate index system of equipment system transportability is also presented based on the construction principle, such as integrity, non-compatibility, operability. The results of this study provide a basic parameters for evaluate model of equipment system transportability. And it offer effective technical support to evaluation and design of equipment system transportability.

Qian Wu, Lin Ma, Chaowei Wang, Longfei Yue
Corrosion and Protection Status in Several Chinese Refineries Processing High-Acid Crude Oil

Naphthenic acid corrosion and corrosion protection status in several Chinese refineries processing high-acid crude oil was summarized and analyzed, including material selecting, corrosion monitoring methods, corrosion case. The processing experiences indicate that the most several corroded parts when processing high-acid crude oil occurred in the vacuum column and transfer line. In one refinery, vacuum tower wall, tower packing and transfer line with SS316L (Mo ≥ 2.5 %), were corroded amazing after 3 years operation, which need to be upgraded to SS317L and with the use of corrosion inhibitor to enhance corrosion protection. In another refinery, many high temperature heat exchangers made of carbon steel in the distillation unit were found corrosion severe. In the third refinery, the atmospheric transfer line with SS321 material had a corrosion rate of 0.3 mm/year, found through the fixed-point thickness measurement, and then upgraded to SS316L. From the processing experiences, it could be concluded that selecting SS18-8, SS316L or even SS317L is necessary when processing high-acid crude oil. Corrosion inhibitor is suggested to be used in the most sever corrosion part, for example in the vacuum column and transfer line. Naphthenic acid corrosion of SS316L has an incubation stage. Corrosion is slower in the initial stage, following by a rapid development once the corrosion forming which made the surface of the metal rough. Therefore, every time a unit shutdown, corrosion inspection should be carefully conducted.

Chunlei Liang, Xuedong Chen, Yunrong Lv, Zhibin Ai, Junfeng Gao
FEM Simulation of Nonlinear Lamb Waves for Detecting a Micro-Crack in a Metallic Plate

Nonlinear ultrasonic technique has been employed to detect micro-cracks since conventional linear elastic ultrasonic technology is just sensitive to gross defects. However, most of nonlinear ultrasonic researches to date have been experimental generally using bulk waves or Rayleigh waves, few numerical studies exist, especially for lamb wave ultrasonic. In this chapter, finite element method (FEM) is applied to simulate nonlinear lamb waves interacting with a micro-crack in a thin metallic structure. A pitch and catch approach is introduced containing two symmetric piezoelectric transition (PZT) wafers as actuators to generate single S0 mode signal and one PZT wafer as receiver. Generated S0 mode lamb waves propagate along the structure, interact with the micro-crack, obtain nonlinear features, and are picked up by the receiver. An undamaged plate and seven plates with different crack length are simulated. The received simulation signal from a micro-cracked plate contains a S0 mode wave-packet and a new wave-packet. A nonlinearity index (NI) is proposed to show the degree of nonlinear effect. The simulation results show that employing NI, a received signal of S0 mode can provide information on the damage severity of a micro-crack and the new wave-packet signal can be used as an early indicator for the existence of a micro-crack.

Xiang Wan, Peter W. Tse, Guanghua Xu, Tangfei Tao, Fei Liu, Xiaoguang Chen, Qing Zhang
Introduction of the Risk Based Optimization and Risk Criteria Analysis of Spare Inventory in Petrochemical Plant

Spares plays an important role in the asset integrity management. In petrochemical industry, great amount of money is occupied by spares which are lower inventory but higher unit price (critical spares). Some typical inventory optimization models, such as Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) method, which focuses mainly on the optimization of storage and order costs, is unsuited for the optimization of inventory of critical spares. While consume based analysis method can precisely predict the demand of spares only if the historical consuming data is adequate and sufficient. But in petrochemical industry, it is always difficult to obtain such data. In order to quantify the optimal spare inventory and determine stock strategy of critical spares, a risk based inventory analysis methodology was put forwarded in this chapter. The probability of stockout was obtained by systematic consideration of spare parts reliability, configuration of available spare equipments and spare parts and lead time of order. Taking stockout-costed loss into consideration, the risks of all critical spares of pumps in Y Company were obtained. It was found that the quantity of low risk spares whose potential yearly loss are less than 500,000 RMB take up to 80 %, while it account for 83 % of overall stock fund. It is except that great amount of money can be saved if those spares can be optimized by risk based spare optimization method. By comparing of the amount of spares and associated proportion of fund its’ occupied, the determination of the risk criteria in spare inventory optimization was also discussed in the last part of this chapter.

Jianxin Zhu, Wenbin Yuan, Peng Xu, Yunrong Lu, Xuedong Chen
Architecture Develop Method for Support System of Integrated Joint Operation Based on DODAF

With the gradual development of technology and war concept, Integrated Joint Operation (IJO) has become an important combat mode. The change of operation mode will inevitably lead to change in the development of equipment support and logistics support system (LSS). And the LSS of IJO shows the characteristics that differ from general equipment LSS, such as integration of support resources, networking of command system. Traditional logistics support system developing method appears to be inadequate in dealing with such a complicated system, which gives system description by texts and diagrams. This paper analyzes the functions, organizations and recourses of the IJO logistics support system deeply. Then an architecture develop method is presented with the combination of features of DODAF architecture. The description method of support system is given by DODAF product based on the view products appropriate selection according to the system characteristic. The develop progress and order of system architecture, activities, organization, resource, information and business flows among departments as well as the mapping relationship among the constituent elements is also presented. The results show that the architecture develop method based on DODAF can provide multi-perspective description of the support system, providing auxiliary basis for operational decision making and engineering personnel to improve system performance. The method can contribute effective technical support to the design and establishment of the LSS of IJO.

Chaowei Wang, Lin Ma, Qian Wu, Xuhua Liu
Research on the Training of the UAV Operators

Compared with manned aircraft, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has small volume, low cost, convenient use, low requirements for combat environment, and strong survival capacity in battlefields. UAV has become the focus in various countries armies. All countries in the world are actively developing UAV, but for UAV operator training, both theoretical research and practice is still exist many deficiencies. This article starts with classification, task model and characteristics of UAV, then analysis the operators’ requirements of different task models, and researches UAV operators’ training of Chinese army base on using foreign army’s experience as references, finally provides reasonable suggestions.

Tian Yong, Zhang Wenjin, Yang Xinglei, Wen Yu
Application and Comparison of Imputation Methods for Missing Degradation Data

A common problem in accelerated degradation testing (ADT) and prognostic and health management (PHM) is the missing of degradation data caused by failure of data transmission or manipulation errors. Facing with such cases, the missing data is usually ignored or even the whole group of data is abandoned. And the loss of valuable information may leads to inaccurate result in the following work. At present, there are various imputation methods have been applied to handling missing data in the field of statistics. These methods estimate the missing values by utilizing the observed data. Unlike most statistical data, degradation data changes over time. But the observed degradation data can still provide valuable information for the estimating. It is therefore reasonable to use these imputation methods to deal with the missing degradation data. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possibility of using these methods for estimating missing values in degradation data. The missing mechanisms of degradation data are studied at first. Then three of the most widely used imputation methods are researched and used. And comparisons are carried out to show the efficiency of the three methods.

Ye Fan, Fuqiang Sun, Tongmin Jiang
A Simulation Research on Test Point Selection for Analog Electronic Systems on Diagnosis and Prognosis

The selection of test points is one of the key steps for electronic systems on prognostic and health management (PHM). Parameters of reasonable test points can characterize the fault features of electronic systems and provide effective input information for diagnosis and prognosis. In this chapter, an improved method of test point selection for analog electronic systems on diagnosis and prognosis is proposed and a case study is presented. The proposed method includes several steps: (1) fault risk analysis: determine susceptibility areas for the electronic system based on environmental stresses analysis and life analysis; (2) functional simulation analysis: based on the circuit schematic diagram, establish the functional simulation model for the system and list all accessible nodes, then identify the relationship between nodes and faults by using correlation models; (3) fault simulation analysis: Combine with the previous analysis of failure modes and mechanisms and set corresponding faults in the functional simulation software; (4) Comprehensive evaluation and selection: evaluate fault simulation data of each test point, and select appropriate test points for the system. The presented method has the following features: considering the specific product condition and failure mechanisms, focusing on high-risk mechanisms, and basing on fault simulation to revise testability model to make it closer to the real fault situations.

Jiaming Liu, Shunong Zhang, Shuang Xie
The Human Dimension of Asset Management

Utilities around the world use Asset Management Plans (AMPs) in some form, as a key tool to direct, operate and manage their assets over time. This paper will examine the degree to which human asset planning and management is aligned with, or incorporated in AMP’s, with specific reference to practices in New Zealand. In particular, it will examine and report on:

1.

The nature of New Zealand and its utilities as a useful model for analysis, being a compact First World country with a diverse population and steadily changing demographic.

2

. WEL Networks as an integrated distribution network company that employs all the human assets required to plan, operate and maintain its assets.

3.

The need for incorporating human asset planning into the AMP.

4.

The components and variables of human asset planning and plans.

5.

The role of institutional knowledge and intellectual property in sustaining performance.

6.

Some methodologies developed for analysing dimensions of human asset planning, such as: a. demand forecasting b. demographic status and analysis of their impacts c. competence assessment and d. identification of development potential.

7.

Some methodologies for optimising human assets: a. Creating an employer brand and employee value proposition b. Longer-term development strategies c. Employee engagement and motivation for performance. The paper will conclude with some key success factors and practices for adding value to Asset Management Plans by incorporating Human Asset Planning as an integrated component of Asset Management.

David van Deventer
A Simulation Research on Gradual Faults in Analog Circuits for PHM

Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) is a key technology for condition-based maintenance and autonomic support, and electronic systems are one of the main application areas in PHM. An electronic system generally consists of digital circuits and analog circuits. However, it seems an aporia concerning the methods of the fault diagnosis and prognosis for analog circuits in current status. For real-time diagnosis and prognosis, various suitable intelligent algorithms are needed, and appropriate data is also needed to select and evaluate the intelligent algorithms. Since the real data are not easy to obtain, instead, simulation data can be considered. In addition, hard faults like open or short circuits are not usual but the gradual failures such as parameters shifting, usually happens. So, it is more valuable to simulate gradual failures and get their data for detecting the applicability of various diagnostic and prognosis algorithms. A voltage-controlled function generator, which wholly consists of analog circuits, is used for the case study in this chapter. First one or more resistors as the coming failure components are selected and defined according to the circuit diagram in the sensitive areas which are determined by thermal analysis, vibration analysis and life analysis. Then, a set of simulation data at different test points is obtained by the Multisim software through gradually varying resistance values of the defined failure resistors while simulating the tolerances of the other normal components by Monte Carlo method at the same time. At last, an experiment was carried out to prove the feasibility of the above simulation method by using the real rheostats instead of the defined failure resistors, and a set of test data at different test points is obtained.

Shuang Xie, Shunong Zhang, Jiaming Liu
Career Employability Development Through a Specialized Asset Management’s Degree: An Exploratory Analysis for a Chilean Program

Asset Management as a growing discipline is being incorporated into the Chilean Industry, especially into the mining Industry; however, there is a need to provide the necessary skills and knowledge regarding these new positions. In that regard, since 2005 we have successfully incorporated a master’s program scheme entitled Master of Asset Management (MGA, currently in its 9th offering). Up to date, more than 300 postgraduate students from different industries have attended this MGA, becoming the leading program in Latin America. In the training field we have developed a Diploma on Asset Management (DGA—140 h). With the present study, we have analysed the students’ profiles to identify the industry distribution and, at the same time, to measure the extent to which the skilled labour (graduates) have moved between different job positions and/or companies, be it as a horizontal mobility (does not result in a change in the worker’s grading or status) or a vertical mobility (if it does). Additionally, we regularly test the influence of the market-value and scholastic and social dimensions of the human capital on the alumni. The scope is mainly the Chilean industry.

Edward Johns, Raúl Stegmaier, Jorge Cea, Fredy Kristjanpoller, Pablo Viveros
PHM Collaborative Design in Aircrafts Based on Work Breakdown Structure

Prognostics and health management (PHM) technique has shifted the focus from traditional status monitoring to health assessment, and has become a critical technique in the development of new weapons and in autonomic logistics. However, the design process of the PHM system is not integrated properly in the design of the aircraft, which makes it impossible to achieve an optimal overall design. With this consideration, we introduce the concept of collaborative design into the PHM design. By applying the technique of work breakdown structure, the PHM system and the corresponding aircraft system are decomposed in three aspects: the object aspect, the development aspect and the project aspect. Then the design process of the PHM system and that of the aircraft are integrated based on the breakdown structure in a collaborative way. Then the PHM design in the aircraft can be optimized and the life cycle cost can be reduced.

Ying Ma, Wenjin Zhang, Jie Meng
Managing Knowledge Assets for the Development of the Renewable Energy Industry

While the world is increasingly concerned with the utilization of fossil energy and carbon emission, renewable energies have been promoted by many governments as alternatives worldwide. Currently, many databases provide big energy data such as international crude oil prices, coal prices, etc., but lack systematic analysis. To increase the use of the data, we propose GEIP (Green Energy Information Platform) using data retrieval techniques to develop a knowledge management platform which can integrate inconsistent information and analyze the development of renewable energy industries. GEIP provides an easy-to-use interface as well as a comprehensive query function from multiple data sources. In addition, the proposed platform can also simultaneously consider distinct factors influencing the development trends of renewable energies, when the development of the renewable energy industry is actually determined by multiple related factors. The result demonstrates our system well project to the development trends of wind power and solar PV in several countries.

Chung-Shou Liao, Hung-Yu Huang, Sheng-Ting Yang, Amy J. C. Trappey
Dynamic Patent Analysis of Wind Power Systems and Engineering Asset Development

Patent analysis of new technology development can be focused on various aspects, e.g., identifying the competitiveness of a specific country or the technical advances of a firm in the given domain. The offshore wind power (OWP) has been promoted and encouraged by many countries for their renewable energy development. This research focuses on systematically discover the profile of OWP technology innovation extracted, analysed and synthesized from world patent databases dynamically using text and data mining techniques. In real time, all related patents are searched and collected. Afterward, the research builds an OWP ontology schema by identifying the OWP technical domain structure, the core concepts, and the relationships between the concepts. The ontology schema is constructed and refined dynamically using key phrases automatically extracted from patents and verified by domain experts. The research also emphasizes on the control of risk and reliable factors when evaluating the offshore wind power development. Thus, the research applies patent indicators, i.e., the patent family, the growth rates of domain technologies, the reference and citation network, the technology and function matrix, and the patent litigation information, to derive the OWP R&D landscape and strategy. After building the OWP patent knowledge base (KB), the potentials of OWP development opportunities for a specific region can be clearly identified with reliable measures based on patent map informatics.

Amy J. C. Trappey, Chii-Ruey Lin, Chun-Yi Wu, P. S. Fang
Strategic Asset Management for Campus Facilities: Balanced Scorecard

In the context of educational research, campus facility management is in the spotlight and plays a significant role in the twenty-first century. Campus facility management has led the school not only optimizing the running costs of buildings, but also increasing the efficiency and suitability of the management of space and other related assists management for people and processes. However, deficient uses of campus facilities continuously appear. Diseconomies of scale and lower service level are likely resulted. In order to find out an optimal solution for the campus facility planning for schools, this paper aims to illustrate capacity planning and control for the campus facility management and to further evaluate the associated logistics strategies. This paper presents a case study on a campus facility management, which is related to the proposed framework for performing efficiency and effectiveness at the different levels of planning including strategic, tactical and operational. Additionally, we also apply the balanced scorecard framework including rigorously different perspectives of financial, customer, internal operations, and continual learning and growth to evaluate the performance of campus facility management. Thus, the school could maintain the balance between the demand placed on a campus facility management and its ability to satisfy market demands in a cost-efficient way.

Yui Yip Lau, Tsz Leung Yip
Bayesian Approach to Determine the Test Plan of Reliability Qualification Test

In view of the shortage of large sample size in Reliability Qualification Test, a Bayesian model is introduced in this paper. Taking advantage of the historical information and expert experience as the prior information, the reliability of the product at current stage is estimated by making use of the new Dirichlet distribution and filed test information in reliability growth testing. Because of the parameters of the new Dirichlet distribution having no physical meaning, to obtain the parameter estimators of prior distribution, we adopt the ML-II method to transfer the failure information at different stages. Considering the balance of consumer’s risk and producer’s risk, the minimum testing plan is scheduled. This method could be regarded as a supplementary program in reliability testing for qualification. An example illustrates the contrast testing test sample size between the proposed method and the standard scheme which validate the proposed approach.

Kun Yuan, Xiao-Gang Li
Consolidating People, Process and Technology to Bridge the Great Wall of Operational and Information Technologies

An organisations competitive advantage depends upon timely and consolidated provision of information to enable strategic decision making. Timely and consolidated provision of information requires integration of people, processes and technology across an organisation. In organisations that manage infrastructure assets such as power, water, sewerage, telecommunications or transport, timely and consolidated provision of information is impeded by a divide of operational and business people, processes and technology. Business areas such as finance may be supported by an Information Technology (IT) branch with well developed governance processes and dedicated information technology people such as network analysts, helpdesk and systems administrators. Operational areas such as power generation do not share such people, processes and technology. This chapter provides asset infrastructure organisations with recent research results indicating phases for consolidating Operational Technology (OT) and IT, identification of OT and IT divide and how to overcome the divide.

Anastasia Govan Kuusk, Jing Gao
Calculation of the Expected Number of Failures for a Repairable Asset System

The expected number of failures is the essential element in cost analysis for a repairable system in engineering asset management. A renewal process is typically used for modelling a repairable system with perfect repairs while a nonhomogeneous Poisson process can be used to model a repairable system with minimal repair. An asset system with imperfect repair will be restored to the state which is somewhere between as bad as old and as good as new. While imperfect repairs are more realistic, it is more challenging to calculate the expected number of failures. In this chapter, we propose an imperfect reparable system assuming decreasing restoration levels conditional on the previous repair actions. Compared with a popular imperfect repairable system settings which assumes a constant discount restoration level after the first failure occurrence, our decreasing restoration levels model may better represent the actual repair-restoration patterns for many asset systems. The likelihood function of the newly proposed model is derived and the model parameters can be estimated based on historical failure time data. We adopt a cumulative hazard function based Monte Carlo simulation approach to calculate the expected number of failures for the newly proposed reparable system model. This new simulation algorithm is demonstrated on both simulated and real data and compared to a popular existing model under a Weibull distribution setting. An advantage of our simulation algorithm is that a bootstrap version confidence band on the estimated expected number of failures can easily be constructed. The modelling and simulation results in the chapter can be used for the development of an engineering reliability analysis and asset management decision making tool.

Gang Xie, Lawrence Buckingham, Michael Cholette, Lin Ma
A Toolkit Towards Performance Based Green Retrofit of HVAC Systems: Literature Review and Research Proposal

It has been argued that energy and environmental performance of existing Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems can be improved significantly if the retrofit measures are selected and implemented properly. Various new retrofit technologies for HVAC systems have emerged that aims to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse emissions, but outcomes of retrofits often present difference from expected performance, with some succeeded, and some failed to meet the expected targets. This is, to some extent, due to relatively less knowledge and rare experience for design and construction of these technologies in HVAC systems. Moreover, lack of systematic assessment approach and limited examination guide make it hard to define the behaviour of each component of HVAC systems. These knowledge gaps and practical deficiencies have in the past prevented practitioners from selecting appropriate HVAC retrofit measures. Therefore, more in-depth research with practical case studies is needed to help test the retrofit outcomes and validate the claimed potential benefits. This chapter firstly will present an overview of the research on HVAC retrofits and introduce the challenges and risks commonly encountered in building renovation. Secondly, the key factors affecting HVAC retrofits will be reviewed and categorized. Finally, a brief description of the overall framework of the research method will be provided, which aims to develop a toolkit for green HVAC systems retrofits.

Shuo Chen, Guomin Zhang, Sujeeva Setunge
Risk Management Based on Probabilistic ATC Under Uncertainty

This chapter presents a methodology for analytical target cascading (ATC) under uncertainty to address the risk management problem. The proposed hierarchical ATC structure is exactly corresponding to the systematic risk management, which is a multidisciplinary optimization procedure. Since the uncertainty induces risks, the proposed probabilistic algorithm reformulates the ATC method by setting random variables and probabilistic constraints. The proposed ATC method decomposes risk management problem into hierarchical sub-problems, which are linked directly above and below using mean values and standard deviations. With the given risk targets from upper levels transmitting downward, each sub-problem at each level of the hierarchy operates the adaptive optimization method to narrow the gaps between responses and the distributed targets. Once the convergence is attained by iterating between top and bottom, variables and parameters are optimized to reduce the risks. The Risk can be regarded as an optimization target together with efficiency and cost, or it can be contained in constraints in each sub-problem to optimize the efficiency and cost within the prescribed risk boundary. A case of risk management optimization is given to verify the proposed methodology. The results confirm the applicability and efficiency of the probabilistic ATC method under uncertainty in risk management.

Mengqi Li, Minghong Han
Systems Engineering Approach to Risk Assessment of Automated Mobile Work Machine Applications

Mobile work machines are today equipped with automatic functionalities. There are fully autonomous mobile work machines operating in factories, mines and harbor terminals. Needs for better productivity, better mobile work machine utility and higher work quality in work sites is driving the work process management towards automated production instead of improving the management of separate manual work machine operations. Safety risks related to automated mobile work machine applications are dependent on several operation condition factors such as mode of operation, level of automation, human–machine–interaction, performed work task and working environment. System safety approach that has been developed among others for aviation, military, process industry and railroad systems is introduced as a solution for safety risk management for complex mobile work machine applications. An application of systems engineering based approach, supporting tools and methods have been developed in close co-operation with mobile work machine manufactures, system suppliers and system end users for automated mobile work machine applications. This chapter describes the developed safety engineering methodology and some evaluation results based on experiences from industrial case studies.

Risto Tiusanen
Stage Division Method and the Main Tasks of Products’ Lifetime Cycle

Due to the high requirement of the products’ quality and updating speed, system engineering attracts broad attention. Great emphasis has been laid on the lifetime cycle process of system engineering and the theory of product’s lifetime cycle. The products’ lifetime cycle design, lifetime cycle management as well as the analysis and control of the lifetime cycle cost (LCC) all embody the theory of product’s lifetime cycle. With this theory, we can not only get whole acquaintance with the product from the beginning, but also take into account the restraint and influence of the subsequent work, so that design flaws could be noticed in advance, time and cost could be reduced, quality could be improved and the competitiveness could be greatly enhanced. Stage division is an indispensable part of lifetime cycle theory. This chapter analyzes overseas and domestic research status as well as stage division method with its main tasks. Furthermore, it takes several concrete products as examples for introduction, including the weaponry, aircraft, automobile, vessel, construction and some others. At last, this chapter gives a simple analysis of interrelationship between these stages and elaborates the theory of system engineering method from time dimension.

Lei Gao, Ying Chen, Rui Kang
Calculation of Failure Rate of Semiconductor Devices Based on Mechanism Consistency

Failure rate data of components is widely used in reliability design and analysis, such as reliability apportionment, reliability prediction, FMECA and so on. Currently, there are two major ways to evaluate failure rate: using prediction handbooks and accelerated life test. Updates to data in handbooks always are delayed, while accelerated life test costs lots of time and money, especially large-scale integrated circuits are expensive. In view of the defect, using corresponding test data provided by manufacturer’s website to calculate failure rate is proposed based on failure mechanism consistency. Test data is analyzed and calculated to get failure rate of Semiconductor devices with each influencing mechanism, and values of failure rate under each mechanism are added together to get total failure rate based on the assumption of competition between mechanism.

Cui Ye, Ying Chen, Rui Kang
Legal Aspects of Engineering Asset Management

Immovable assets include engineered infrastructure such as buildings, manufacturing plant, roads and railways. These assets are built on land. In most jurisdictions, proposals to acquire and/or establish immovable assets on landed property must comply with several legislative provisions. In many instances, the acquisition and/or establishment of an immovable asset becomes embroiled in legal disputes between contending stakeholders asserting rights to ownership/custodianship of land. Such disputes add to the costs of capital development projects, mergers and acquisitions, and influence decisions as to where an asset intensive business venture can be located. Legislation not only provides the means to resolve ownership/custodianship rights but also, it stipulates legal imperatives for control and utilization of engineering assets on landed property. It is in this regard that this chapter presents some of the legal aspects of engineering asset management.

Joe Amadi-Echendu, Anthea Amadi-Echendu
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Engineering Asset Management - Systems, Professional Practices and Certification
herausgegeben von
Peter W. Tse
Joseph Mathew
King Wong
Rocky Lam
C.N. Ko
Copyright-Jahr
2015
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-09507-3
Print ISBN
978-3-319-09506-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09507-3