Some replacement policies with minimal repairs and repair cost limit

Some extended replacement policies based on the number of failures, incorporating the concept of repair cost limit are discussed. Three models are considered as follows: (a) a unit is replaced at the nth failure, or when the estimated minimal repair cost exceeds a particular limit c; (b) a unit has two types of failures and is replaced at the nth type 1 failure, or type 2 failure, or when the estimated repair cost of type 1 failures exceeds a predetermined limit c—type 1 failures are minimal; failures, type 2 failures are catastrophic failures and both occur with constant probability; (c) a unit has two types of failures and the type 1 and type 2 failures are age dependent—the unit is replaced at the nth type 1 failure, type 2 failure, or when the estimated repair cost due to type 1 failures exceeds a predetermined limit c. Introducing costs due to replacements, inspections, and minimal repairs, an optimal number of minimal repairs before replacement is obtained, which minimizes the expected cost rate. Some particular cases are also derived. Finally, the application of these models to computer science is discussed.