Track 2 Session 6
10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Thursday March 26, 2009

Reliability-Centred Maintenance Applied to Military Structures

Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM) has been widely applied in the UK within the Royal Navy and the British Army. However, the Defence Standard DEF STAN 02-45 used on those military RCM studies does not adequately address monocoque structure where no alternative load paths exist. A process for addressing this issue for Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) has been developed and finds particular application to managing the risk of structural failure in the face of hostile attack. This function-based process can be extrapolated to other monocoque load-bearing structures. The presentation shows how the proposed approach differs from Risk Based Inspection (RBI) and goes on to describe a calculator that allows an inspection interval for an AFV structure to be determined.

Key Words: Reliability-Centred Maintenance, RCM, Monocoque Structures, Structural Integrity