Title: Reliability analysis of load-sharing m-out-of-n systems with arbitrary load and different probability distributions of time to failure

Authors: Sergey V. Gurov; Lev V. Utkin

Addresses: Department of Control, Automation and System Analysis, St. Petersburg State Forest Technical University, Institutsky per. 5, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia ' Department of Control, Automation and System Analysis, St. Petersburg State Forest Technical University, Institutsky per. 5, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia

Abstract: The reliability analysis of load-sharing m-out-of-n systems where the workload is shared by the remaining working units when a unit fails is proposed in the paper. General expressions are provided for the m-out-of-n system reliability by arbitrary probability distributions of time to failure of units. Simplified methods are given for computing the survivor function in cases when the time to unit failure is governed by the Weibull and exponential probability distributions. The system survivor function and the mean time to failure in the explicit form are obtained for systems with arbitrary load (decreasing and increasing) by the exponential time to unit failure. Numerical examples illustrate the properties of load-sharing m-out-of-n systems.

Keywords: reliability analysis; load sharing; m-out-of-n system; survivor function; Weibull distribution; exponential distribution; mean time to failure; MTTF; Monte Carlo simulation; probability distributions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2015.071569

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2015 Vol.9 No.1, pp.21 - 35

Received: 22 May 2014
Accepted: 10 May 2015
Published online: 01 Sep 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article