Availability of a Ship Propulsion System under Aging Effects

Availability of a ship propulsion system under aging effects is estimated using GO-FLOW. GO-FLOW is an effective software tool for the availability analysis of complex systems. Aging effects are incorporated into GO-FLOW using a time-dependent technique and assuming a linear aging model. The results show that the aging effects can potentially increase the frequency of accidents due to a malfunction of the propulsion system by a factor of 10 over a period of 20 years, if maintenance is conducted annually at dock only.