The temporal dimension of age is a universal truth. Since time immemorial, individuals from all walks of life have glorified age and the process of getting older from an abstract perspective. "The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles!" - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes." - Frank Lloyd Wright are some of the examples where aging and maturing into a better version have been projected as synonymous.
However, in the physical world of plants and machinery, age is generally looked down upon as a harbinger of reduced ability in terms of performance, dependability, efficiency etc. This is best resonated in the words of William Shakespeare – "Where Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; Youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame."
In a typical Oil & Gas environment, all the three primary reliability indices i.e. Reliability, Availability, Maintainability of equipment/system get adversely affected by age for many of the equipment type/family. Wear and tear, Degradation in strength, Fatigue, Creep, Corrosion, Deterioration of mechanical, electrical, chemical and hydraulic nature, Poor service (Maintenance, Repair, Replacement) e.g. replacement of failed parts by partially aged ones, incorrect fitment, imperfect repair etc. are all reasons of aging and sources of age-related failure. This necessitates that during Reliability Analysis of equipment and systems, age is effectively captured and factored in the calculation process. Capturing age becomes even more important when predictions and forecasts are to be made over a substantially long duration of operation and inability to do so widens the gap between analysis outcome and reality.
