Kenya Polytechnic University College Examination CAT II - BPhil Maintenance Engineering November 2012 Instruction to candidates: Answer any

TWO questions Q1. (a) Fatigue and overloading are among the causes of failure; describe these causes of failure and for each give typical examples where the failure occurs. List the other causes of failure. (b) A manufacturer of an air compressor with a new design has tested its product to assess the various maintenance performance measures. Fifty (50) air compressors were each put to test for a running time of 1200 hours. It was found that there were totally 100 small and medium types of failures during the testing phase; in total 1450 hours were lost on account of identifying the problem and restoring it back to working condition. Based on this information, compute the following measures: i) Failure rate of compressor. ii) MTBF. iii) MTTR. iv) Availability of compressor. Q2.(a) What difficulties encountered in maintenance, and how are these difficulties mitigated? Outline six strategies used by industrialists to minimize maintenance cost and time. (b) Discuss the principal elements of the active repair time. Q3. (a) What are the benefits of effective maintenance system. (b) What are some of the methods used in condition monitoring? Q4. Write short notes on the following: (a) Application of MIS in maintenance (b) Machine fault diagnostic (c) Maintenance planning (d) Maintenance scheduling Q5. (a) State why production equipment is replaced. State the three types of replacement decisions, and explain the dilemma in making these decisions. (b) Outline the main reasons for equipment replacement. Q6. (a) Explain in detail the relationship between Maintenance and Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) (b) State the advantages and disadvantages of condition monitoring