Development of an Efficient Approach for Reliability Analysis Using the Comparative Study of Several Static and Dynamic Methods; Case Study of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

1 Mechanical Engineering Department, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran

2 ACECR Institute of Higher Education, Rasht Branch, Iran

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are increasingly being popular in many applications. Their operation requires a high level of safety and reliability to accomplish successful missions. In this study, their reliability is comparatively analyzed by different available approaches to select the efficient method. Firstly, the failure model of the system is developed. Then, three different scenarios are considered to study the effect of redundancies on the reliability of the system. In the first scenario, there is no redundancy, whereas in the second scenario there is one redundant component and in the third scenario, there are three redundant components. Static reliability analysis implemented on the proposed scenarios using methods of Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Reliability Block Diagram (RBD), Markov Chain (MC), and Bayesian Networks (BN) and the results are obtained. Also, regarding the time dependencies between redundant components, a dynamic-based methodology is developed by applying Dynamic Fault Tree (DFT) analysis. Then, the proposed static and dynamic approaches are applied to a UAV as a case study and the results are discussed. Finally, the characteristics of each methodology and the related conditions are clarified for selecting the efficient reliability analysis approach.

Keywords

Main Subjects


  1. Modarres, M. Kaminskiz, and V. Krivstov, Reliability Engineering andRisk Analysis: A Practical Guide. Vol. 55: CRC press., 2009.
  2. W. Blischke, M. D. N. Prabhakar, Case Studies in Reliability and Maintenance, Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics, 2003.
  3. P.Fahlstrom, T. Gleason, Introduction to UAV Systems, Wiley press, 2012.
  4. W. Hanks, G.T. Katt, R.H. Edwards, R.D. Shannon, 747 primary flight control system reliability and Maintenance, NASA, 1980.
  5. Leigh P. Ackart, An evaluation of markov chain modeling for fa-18 aircraft readiness, M. Sc. Thesis, 1998.
  6. Nanda and S. Rao, A Formal Method Approach to Analyze the Design of Aircraft Flight Control Systems, 3rd Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, Vancouver, Canada, 2009.
  7. Pourgl-Mohammad, K. Sepanloo, K. Karimi, Hybrid Fault Tree Markov Chain (Hft-Mc) Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methodology with Application, ANS PSA 2011 International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, 2011.
  8. Xing and G. Levitin, BDD-based Reliability Evaluation of Phased-Mission Systems with Internal-External Common-Cause Failures, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf., vol. 112, pp. 145–153, 2013.
  9. Mi, Y. Li, H. Huang, Y. Lio, X. Zhang, Reliability Analysis of Multi-State System with Common-Cause Based on Bayesian Networks, Maintenance and Reliability, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 169–175, 2013.
  10. Asghari, M. Pourgol-Mohammad, F. Salehpour, Improving Dynamic Fault Tree Method for Complex System Reliability Analysis: Case Study of a Wind Turbine, ASME 2015 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, vol. 14, Houston, Texas, USA, 2015.
  11. Kanga, L. Zhonga, Z. Haijun, Research on probabilistic safety analysis approach of flight control system based on Bayesian network, Procedia Engineering vol. 99, pp. 180-184, 2015.
  12. Duan and J. Fan, Reliability evaluation of data communication system based on DFT under epistemic uncertainty, Hindawi Publishing Corporation, 2014.
  13. R. Garoarsdottir, Reliability Analysis of the RB-211 Jet Engines Operated by Icelandair, M. Sc. Thesis, 2014.
  14. G. Okafor & I. H. Eze, Failure analysis of a UAV flight control system using markov analysis, Nigerian Journal of Technology (NIJOTECH), vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 167-173, 2016.
  15. Boudali, J.B. Dugan, a discrete-time Bayesian network reliability modelingand analysis framework, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf., vol. 87, pp. 337-349, 2005.
  16. Verma, A. Srividya, D. R. Karanki, Reliability and Safety engineering, Springer, 2010.
  17. Duan, H. Zhou, J. Fan, Diagnosis strategy for complex systems based onreliability analysis and MADM under epistemic uncertainty, EksploatacjaI Niezawodnosc–Maintenance and Reliability, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 345-354, 2015.
  18. Boudali, J.B. Dugan, A New Bayesian Network Approach to Solve DFT,Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS), IEEE, 2005.
  19. D. Rao, V. Gopika, V. V. S. S. Rao, H. S. Kushwaha, A. K. Verma, and A.Srividya, Dynamic fault tree analysis using Monte Carlo simulation inprobabilistic safety assessment. Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf., vol. 94, no. 4, pp. 872-883, 2009.