Preventive maintenance policy for linear consecutive-k-out-of-n: F system

Linear consecutive-k-out-of-n: F systems are considered. It is assumed that the components are independent and the component failure times follow an exponential distribution with identical failure rate. It is also assumed that there are only two component states (working and failed) and we can know the component state at any time. If there is at least one minimal cut set consisting of one working component, the system will be preventively maintained after a certain time interval. If the system fails before reaching the preventive maintenance (PM) time, the failed components are replaced by the new ones. The optimal PM interval time which minimizes the expected cost rate is obtained. The performance of the proposed policy is evaluated by comparing the expected cost rate of the proposed policy with those of corrective maintenance (CM) and age PM policy.