Title: Load-share reliability models with the piecewise constant load

Authors: Sergey V. Gurov; Lev V. Utkin

Addresses: Department of Mathematical Modelling in Economics, St. Petersburg State Forest Technical University, Institutsky per. 5, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia. ' Department of Mathematical Modelling in Economics, St. Petersburg State Forest Technical University, Institutsky per. 5, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia

Abstract: In this paper, we study methods for reliability analysis of the load-share models. In load-share systems, component or system failure rates depend on the working state of the other components in the system or on changeable conditions of system functioning. A special type of load, namely the piecewise constant load is investigated. The main assumption used in the paper is the so-called 'condition of the residual lifetime conservation' of the system, which is equivalent to the condition of continuity of the reliability (survivor) function. Rather simple recurrent expressions are obtained for computing reliability measures. Various numerical examples illustrate the proposed models.

Keywords: reliability modelling; system load share models; failure rate; survivor function; exponential distribution; mean time to failure; load sharing; piecewise constant load.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2012.049599

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2012 Vol.6 No.4, pp.338 - 353

Received: 12 Mar 2011
Accepted: 03 Oct 2011
Published online: 27 Dec 2014 *

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