Solving Redundancy Allocation Problem with Repairable Components Using Genetic Algorithm and Simulation Method

Reliability optimization problem has a wide application in engineering area. One of the most important problems in reliability is redundancy allocation problem (RAP). In this research, we worked on a RAP with repairable components and k-out-of-n sub-systems structure. The objective function was to maximize system reliability under cost and weight constraints. The aim was determining optimal components number of each subsystem, including the optimal number of repairmen allocated to each subsystem. Because this model belongs to Np. Hard problem, we used genetic algorithm (GA) for solving the presented model and response surface methodology (RSM) was used for tuning of algorithm parameters. Also for calculating the reliability of each subsystem (and system reliability) we used a simulation method. Finally, a numerical example was solved to test the algorithm performance.