Optimal preventive maintenance policies for a two-component system with failure interaction

Abstract : In this paper we study a classical warranty policy 'free replacement policy' (FRW) for a two-component system with the following failure dependence between them: unit 1 causes random damages to unit 2 when it fails. While the failure of unit 2 is catastrophic and it destroys unit 1 and so the whole system. Imperfect maintenance by using virtual age method and system replacement are executed when the failure occurs to component 1 and the whole system respectively. Under both the non-renewable FRWand renewable FRW, from the manufacturers' point of view, the system expected total warranty costs are explored.