Warthon, Michael V.

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    Reliability estimation through computer simulation using asap data
    (2014) Warthon, Michael V.; Rodríguez-Martínez, Manuel; College of Engineering; Vega, Jose Fernando; Resto, Pedro; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Acuna, Edgar
    This work covers the design and implementation of a Microsoft Excel-based simulation program intended to estimate helicopter reliability. The simulation program is written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and will be used by the US Army Reliability and Maintainability (RAM) Engineering and Assessment group in order to improve the scheduling of planned interventions and thus decrease the occurrence of unexpected failures while in service. Currently, the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) uses a block diagram model to estimate helicopter reliability, which assumes that planned and unplanned interventions as well as repair durations can be modeled using particular (e.g. Weibull, log-normal, etc) probability density functions (pdf’s). Data extracted from the Aviation System Assessment Program (ASAP), the maintenance log in which all helicopter interventions are documented, showed that such pdf assumptions are not appropriate. Thus, empirical distributions were used in order to allow the simulation model to mimic better actual reliability performance. The structure of the VBA simulation program is built around the events that happen through the life of the helicopter, such as failures while in use, repair and maintenance interventions, idle periods, and others. Input data is extracted from ASAP into an Excel worksheet from which the empirical distributions are defined. The results of the simulation run are then delivered to the same Excel worksheet for additional analysis and graph preparation.