Analytical method for reliability and MTTF assessment of coherent systems with dependent components

摘要

This paper discusses engineering systems with structural as well as failure dependence among their components. Using the Markov process approach, a coherent system of components with multivariate phase type life distribution is introduced to model the components working in a common random environment. The phase type model is flexible enough to comprise many realistic situations, and also manages to yield the explicit matrix representations of the system reliability measures. Some examples are also presented to illustrate the fact that ignoring the failure dependence among the components often results in over-estimating or under-estimating the system reliability.