Reliability analysis of series-parallel systems with time-varying failure rates

摘要

A non-homogeneous Markov model is used to obtain closed form solutions of the state probabilities and the reliability of two identical independent modules in series, and each module has two parallel components. Each component has an exponentialtime varying failure rate. Assuming that the failure rates are statistically independent, solutions are extended to N parallel components. Assuming that the failure rates are load-sharing, solutions are obtained in case of Weibull distribution with shape parameterα=2. The probabilities of going out of service are also provided.