Simulation model for simple yet robust resilience assessment metrics for engineered systems

Modelling system properties is a central step to carry out time-dependant simulations of system’ s operating conditions. In this paper, we present a simulation model combined with simple metrics that focus on system's resilience at a technical level, represented through absorption, adaptation and recovery. Following the techno-centric perspective of this research, the components’ reliability is considered as the main performance of interest for the analysis. When a failure occurs following a certain probability, performance is restored after a specified recovery time. This latter is a stochastic variable that relies on recovery functions specific for every component. The model has been applied in a case study referred to a hot water generation plant for hospitals. The case study shows how the model allows depicting performance levels and its flexibility for multiple management strategies, supporting what-if scenarios analyses.