First name and Last name:

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SAFETY IN MOBILITY
EXAM: 05/02/2024
Note:

1. Make sure you write your first name, last name, student number or person code, and sign every exam sheet;
2. The exam consist of 1 exercise (E), 2 multiple answers questions (MA) and 1 open question (Q);
3. The total score of the exam is 30 with the following constraints to pass the exam:
𝐸 + 𝑀𝐴 + 𝑄 ≥ 18
𝐸≥7
{
𝑀𝐴 ≥ 1
𝑄≥9
4. The exam time is 1 hours and 30 minutes.

Exercise [E, 11 points]

The emergency braking system of a train has a constant failure rate equal to 𝜆. Every 𝑇 hours of
operation, the train is taken out of service and a scheduled maintenance intervention, which lasts
for 𝜏 hours, is performed on the emergency braking system.

You are required to:

E1) Plot the time evolution of the system instantaneous unavailability from [0, 2𝑇 + 𝜏);
E2) Evaluate the system average availability and unavailability over a maintenance cycle;
E3) Find the value of 𝑇 which minimizes the system average unavailability.
E4) Repeat E1) assuming that the scheduled maintenance intervention consists in the test of the
system, which lasts for 0.3𝜏 and a repair, which lasts for 0.7𝜏: The repair is performed only if the
system is found failed at the test.
E5) Compute the system instantaneous availability and unavailability in the time period [0, 2𝑇 +
𝜏);

Multiple answers [2 points, 1 point each]

MA.1) Consider the event tree in the figure below, which refers to a plant safety system. Assume
that the probability of having a fire is 0.03 and the probability of failure of the other components
of the safety system is 0.1, what is the probability that the fire is not suppressed (NS)?
 Fire Detector Sprinkler Brigade Extinguisher No. Cons.

1 OK
2 OK
3 OK
4 NS
5 NS

a. 0.4
b. 0.003
c. 0.3
d. 0.002

MA.2) Consider the integral:

+∞
𝐺=∫ 𝑡 ∙ 𝑓𝑇 (𝑡)𝑑𝑡
0

Assume that 𝑓𝑇 (𝑡) is a Weibull Distribution whose probability density function is:
𝛼−1
𝑓𝑇 (𝑡) = 𝛽𝛼𝑡 𝛼−1 𝑒 −𝛽𝑡
and the corresponding cumulative distribution:
𝛼
𝐹𝑇 (𝑡) = 1 − 𝑒 −𝛽𝑡

with 𝛽 = 10−3 and 𝛼 = 1.2. Use the following random values generated from an uniform
distribution in the range [0,1): 𝑟1 = 0.8147, 𝑟2 = 0.9058, 𝑟3 = 0.1270, 𝑟4 = 0.9134, 𝑟5 =
0.6324, 𝑟6 = 0.0975, 𝑟7 = 0.2785, 𝑟8 = 0.5469 and Monte Carlo estimate the integral 𝐺 and the
standard deviation of the estimator. Which is the result?
a. 326.36 ± 88.55
b. 254.7 ± 90.6
c. 279 ± 88.55
d. 326.36 ± 108.55

Question [17 points]

With reference to the technique of “Markov Reliability and Availability Analysis”:
Q.1) Describe its objectives and role in the framework of Probabilistic Risk Assessment;
Q.3) Discuss the underlying assumptions of the technique;
Q.2) Consider two identical units in parallel with constant failure rate 𝜆. When the system fails,
both units are repaired with constant repair rate 𝜇. Illustrate qualitatively the procedure to calculate
the system reliability describing each step.