Optimal adaptive inspection and maintenance planning for deteriorating structural systems

TL;DR

This paper develops an adaptive optimization framework for inspection and maintenance planning of deteriorating structures, incorporating interdependent components and uncertainty, to improve decision-making over the structure's service life.

Contribution

It formalizes the optimization of simple decision rules for I&M plans and extends them to adaptive strategies that update based on inspection results, considering component interdependence.

Findings

Adaptive planning improves maintenance outcomes.

Method effectively handles component interdependence.

Application demonstrated on fatigue-damaged structural frame.

Abstract

Optimizing inspection and maintenance (I&M) plans for a large deteriorating structure is a computationally challenging task, in particular if one considers interdependences among its components. This is due to the sheer number of possible decision alternatives over the lifetime of the structure and the uncertainty surrounding the deterioration processes, the structural performance and the outcomes of inspection and maintenance actions. To address this challenge, Luque and Straub (2019) proposed a heuristic approach in which I&M plans for structural systems are defined through a set of simple decision rules. Here, we formalize the optimization of these decision rules and extend the approach to enable adaptive planning. The initially optimal I&M plan is successively adapted throughout the service life, based on past inspection and monitoring results. The proposed methodology uses stochastic deterioration models and accounts for the interdependence among structural components. The heuristic-based adaptive planning is illustrated for a structural frame subjected to fatigue.