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Malfunctions
Revised : 15 May 2021
According to Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Similarly, an equipment and a part can fail due to either (1) its reliability rating or (2) its wear and tear condition.
The perils of living on Mars are very real. In mars-sim, we model a total of 39 types of malfunctions that may occur :
| Malfunctions |
|---|
| Air Leak |
| Vehicle Fire |
| Class A Fire |
| Class B Fire |
| Class C Fire |
| Class D Fire |
| Class K Fire |
| Damaged Wheel |
| Fuel Leak |
| Generator Problems |
| Rover Battery Failure |
| EVA Battery Failure |
| Communication System Failure |
| Navigation System Failure |
| Control Panel Malfunction |
| Water Leak |
| Heating Unit Failure |
| Water Contamination |
| Food Contamination |
| Chemical Spill |
| Suit Tear |
| EVA Radio Failure |
| Electrical Short |
| Motor Failure |
| Fuel Pump Failure |
| Water Pump Failure |
| Carbon Dioxide Pump Failure |
| Kitchen Oven Failure |
| Ventilation Fan Failure |
| Kitchen Stove Failure |
| Kitchen Autoclave Failure |
| Kitchen Refrigerator Failure |
| Kitchen Microwave Failure |
| Solar Parabolic Mirror Failure |
| LED Lighting Kit Failure |
| Mushroom Containment Kit Failure |
| Laser Sintering 3D Printer Failure |
| Fuel Cell Stack Failure |
| Meteorite Impact Damage |
For sure, there is an intrinsic relationship between Malfunction and Reliability. The more reliable the part, the less likely it will become malfunction.
Suffice to say that a person's Personality Trait, namely Neuroticism, also plays a role in contributing to the malfunction of Equipment or Part that he/she is utilizing.
When a malfunction occurs, we define and capture the following information :
- the actor/witness is identified
- the place/location is identified
- an equipment (rover, EVA Suit, etc) or a building involved is identified.
- Type of Malfunction captured as MalfunctionMeta
The MalfunctionMeta is defined in the malfunction.xml configuration file. It defines the characteristics of the Malfunction such as:
- the type and duration of the required repair work
- any parts need to perform the repair
- severity
- any effect on the life support
- scope of the malfunction (namely, the building function or a system) being affected The last attribute allows the same type of Malfunction to occur in numerous locations/buildings.
There are 3 probable causes of malfunctions that we model :
| Cause of Malfunctions |
|---|
| Part Fatigue |
| Human Factor |
| Software Quality Control |
The Part Fatigue type of malfunctions is covered by the concept of Field Reliability.
The Software Quality Control type has to do with the failure of a bot (possessing a certain skill level) when the incident happens.
The Human Factor type of malfunctions involve the nervousness factor of a settler as explained above.
In mars-sim, we define 3 types of repair work that follows a malfunction:
| Types of repair work |
|---|
| General Repair |
| Emergency Repair |
| EVA Repair |
Some malfunctions require 3 types of repair while some having just 1 or 2 types.
Currently, the core engine pick the best mechanic as the chief repairer for each type of repair. However, anyone who has reasonably good mechanical skill can join in the repair effort to speed up the process.
See #321, #194 and #177 for in-depth discussions on what to improve in future.