Reliability of Series-Parallel Systems With Random Failure Propagation Time

This paper presents an algorithm for evaluating the reliability and performance distribution of complex non-repairable series-parallel multi-state systems with common cause failures caused by propagation of failures in system elements. The failure propagation can have a selective effect, which means...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on reliability Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 637 - 647
Main Authors Levitin, Gregory, Liudong Xing, Ben-Haim, Hanoch, Yuanshun Dai
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.09.2013
Subjects
Common cause failure
multi-state system
Performance evaluation
Polynomials
Probability density function
propagated failure
propagation time
Random variables
Reliability
reliability block diagram
selective effect
System performance
Throughput
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Summary:This paper presents an algorithm for evaluating the reliability and performance distribution of complex non-repairable series-parallel multi-state systems with common cause failures caused by propagation of failures in system elements. The failure propagation can have a selective effect, which means that the failures originating from different elements can cause failures of different subsets of system elements. The failure propagation time is assumed to be a random value with a given distribution. The suggested algorithm is based on the universal generating function approach, and a generalized reliability block diagram method (recursive aggregation of pairs of elements and their replacement by an equivalent one). The evaluation procedure is repeated for each combination of elements affected by the common cause failures. Illustrative examples are provided.
ISSN:0018-9529
1558-1721
DOI:10.1109/TR.2013.2270415