ReliaSoft BlockSim
ReliaSoft BlockSim provides a comprehensive platform for system reliability, availability, maintainability and related analyses.
ReliaSoft BlockSim
ReliaSoft BlockSim provides a comprehensive platform for system reliability, availability, maintainability and related analyses.
ReliaSoft BlockSim offers a sophisticated graphical interface that allows you to model the simplest or most complex systems and processes using reliability block diagrams (RBDs) or fault tree analysis (FTA) — or a combination of both approaches. Markov diagrams are also available. Using exact computations or discrete event simulation, BlockSim facilitates a wide variety of analyses for both repairable and non-repairable systems. In ReliaSoft 2020 version, BlockSim also now contains optionally licensed features for Process Flow and Event Analysis (formerly known as RENO).
Key Capabilities:
- Assess system reliability and lower the failure rates Quickly build complex models to identify potential areas of poor reliability and where improvements can be made.
- Find the most effective ways to improve system performance Design any configuration to analyse its reliability, maintainability, and availability using load sharing, standby redundancy, phases, and duty cycles to represent the system.
- Enhance your maintenance optimisation and simulation modelling Model the reliability and maintainability of equipment and analyse multiple flow types within the system using process flow diagrams.
- Make predictions and recognise the patterns Model the behaviour of a system with Markov diagrams, and analyse partial or degraded working states.
- Estimate production capacity and identify critical components Identify bottlenecks in production, optimise resource allocation, and improve the processing efficiency of any system with throughput analysis.
- Make crucial decisions easier with life cycle cost analysis Specify the direct and indirect costs associated with the maintenance strategies that you have defined, including costs related to downtime, maintenance crews, spares, etc.
See All Functionality
Reliability block diagrams (RBDs) Easy drag-and-drop techniques allow you to build reliability block diagrams (RBDs) for the simplest to the most complex systems. Availability analysis via simulation diagrams BlockSim simulation capability for reliability, availability, maintainability and supportability analysis of repairable systems is more flexible and realistic than ever. For a new system, you can use simulation results to optimise the design and make projections about how the system may perform in the field. For existing equipment, use the results for maintenance planning, throughput estimates, life cycle cost estimation and more. When you utilise simulation, the analysis can consider:
- Simple series and parallel: Simple series configuration assumes that the failure of any one component causes the system to fail, while simple parallel configuration assumes full redundancy in the system.
- Complex: Require a more advanced analytical treatment than a simple combination of series and parallel blocks. Such configurations may be required for analyzing network systems, competing failure modes, etc.
- k-out-of-n: Node blocks can be used to define k-out-of-n redundancy, where a specified number of paths leading to the node must succeed in order for the system to succeed.
- Load sharing: Each block supports a percentage of the total load.
- Standby redundancy: Standby blocks are available to become active under specified circumstances. BlockSim can model hot, warm or cold standby configurations.
- Mirrored blocks: Allow you to put the exact same component in more than one location within the diagram. These blocks can be used, for example, to simulate bi-directional paths in a communications network.
- Multi blocks: Help you to save time (and space in the diagram) by using a single block to represent multiple identical components configured in series or parallel.
- Subdiagrams: BlockSim offers a virtually unlimited capability to link diagrams as components in other diagrams, which provides a variety of opportunities to encapsulate one analysis into another.
- AND and OR gates
- NOT, NAND and NOR gates
- Voting gates
- Inhibit gates
- Priority AND and Sequence Enforcing gates
- Load Sharing and Standby gates
Process Flow captures system availability and maintainability based on reliability numeric by providing the ability to simply create and simulate various flow models. The combined capability allows a wider number of operating scenarios to be modelled thus delivering essential insight to improve organisational processes, increase operational efficiency, and reduce the costs of output. This product option is available at an additional cost. Reliability analysis via analytical diagrams Use the convenient Quick Calculation Pad (QCP) and plot sheets to calculate and visualise key system reliability metrics such as:
- Reliability and probability of failure
- Reliable life (i.e., time for a given reliability)
- BX% life (i.e., time for a given unreliability)
- Mean life
- Failure rate
BlockSim provides a tool dedicated to helping you find the most effective reliability allocation to meet a system’s reliability goal. This feature supports Equal, Weighted and Cost Optimised methods. Start at the system level and click your way to the component or failure mode level while the software automatically computes the target reliability for each item/mode and transfers it to the next.
- Task scheduling logistics, which includes a “Virtual Age” option for situations in which the scheduled maintenance task will be performed even if the item has failed.
- Restoration factor that captures the impact of repairs on the future reliability of the component.
- Duty cycles for components (or assemblies) that experience a different stress load than the rest of the system.
- Expected downtime associated with corrective or scheduled maintenance.
- Costs and logistical constraints associated with allocating the personnel (repair crews) and materials (spare parts) required to perform maintenance.
- Maintenance groups that identify components that will receive maintenance based on what happens to other components.
- State change triggers that activate or deactivate a block under certain conditions during the simulation. This provides increased modelling flexibility for highly complex dependency scenarios, such as standby configurations and other situations when you may need to divert the simulation onto an alternate path when a particular event occurs.
- Choosing the most effective maintenance strategy based on considerations of safety, cost and/or availability.
- Using the optimum replacement tool to calculate both the optimum preventive maintenance (PM) and/or optimum inspection intervals.
- Managing the spare parts inventory based on considerations of cost, utilisation rate, supply bottlenecks, etc.
- Identifying the components that have the biggest impact on availability (downtime).
- Specify what kinds of crew delays are included in cost calculations and what delays should be ignored
- Specify costs associated with system failure, including cost per incident and downtime rate
- Specify system uptime revenue and revenue due to throughput so the simulation is able to calculate opportunity costs
- View new cost-related simulation results, including system-level costs, the contributions of different kinds of wait times to block costs and the contribution (criticality) of a block’s cost to the total system costs
- Design an experiment in Weibull++ —> simulate the experiment in BlockSim (and Event Analysis module) —> then return to Weibull++ and analyse the simulated “response” data.
- Perform batch simulation of an RBD, using different input values for each simulation. For example, this tool makes it easy to run a set of simulations that compare a variety of possible scenarios by altering specific inputs (e.g., cost, maintenance interval, etc.) for each simulation.
- Plot setup allows you to completely customise the “look and feel” of plot graphics while the RS Draw metafile graphics editor provides the option to insert text, draw objects or mark particular points on plot graphics. You can save your plots in a variety of graphic file formats for use in other documents.
- Overlay Plots allow you to plot multiple results together in the same plot. This can be an effective visual tool for many different purposes, such as comparing different analyses (e.g., Design A vs. Design B) or demonstrating the effects of a design change (e.g., Before vs. After).
- Customisable reports seamlessly integrates spreadsheet and word processing capabilities while enabling you to include calculated results and plots from your analysis.
What's New in Version 2020
ReliaSoft has added to BlockSim the optionally licensed Event Analysis module (formerly known as RENO). With new capabilities and already existing Process Flow module, BlockSim provides comprehensive solutions for product designers and asset managers.
The latest version allows for more consistent application management between similar features and provides customers with streamlined experience for similar reliability approaches and interfaces.