Failure and reliability analysis of heavy firefighting and rescue vehicles: a case study

The purpose of the article was to analyse the reliability, maintainability, and availability estimates of firefighting and rescue engines. Analysing the reliability parameters of heavy firefighting and rescue vehicles over time requires knowledge of their failures. In this article, failure data from the six years of maintenance of ten heavy firefighting and rescue vehicles from ten were analysed in relation to two main subsystems. Reliability analysis was performed and the best-fit distribution was found, with the parameters calculated. For both subsystems, the chassis combined with the cabin and the superstructure, the 2P-Weibull distribution was identified as the most suitable fit. The availability and maintenance indicators for each vehicle and the individual subsystems were calculated. It was clearly defined that there exists a significant difference between the two subsystems analysed in terms of failure characteristics, as well as maintainability and availability parameters.