Civil and Environmental Engineering Dpt, University of California, Berkeley
June 14, 2011, 12:15, Room CM 1 (click here for the map)
<p>This research addresses the determination of optimal maintenance and replacement policies for a heterogeneous system of facilities. The problem of optimizing maintenance and replacement policies at the system level is formulated in a reliability-based framework, based on policies that are optimal at the facility level. The facility-level policies are determined using a finite-state, finite horizon Markov decision process in which the state of the Markov chain contains information on the history of maintenance and deterioration. </p><p>Optimality conditions for the continuous-case system-level problem are explained intuitively. A numerical study shows that the results obtained in the discrete-case implementation of the solution are valid approximations of the continuous-case results. The computational efficiency of the system-level solution makes the formulation suitable for systems of realistic sizes.</p>
Dr. Madanat is Xenel Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1991. He is the Editor in Chief of the ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems. Dr. Madanat's research interests are in the area of civil infrastructure systems management, with emphasis on the utilization of analytical methods in modeling facility performance and optimizing life-cycle management decisions. His research has been published in Transportation Science, Transportation Research, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Journal of Transportation Engineering, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering and Transportation Research Record.