Reliability analysis for k-out-of-(n+1): G star configuration multi-state systems with performance sharing

• Published in: Computers & industrial engineering 2021-02, Vol.152, p.106991, Article 106991
• Main Authors: Su, Peng, Wang, Guanjun, Duan, Fengjun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: k-out-of-([formula omitted]): G system; Performance sharing mechanism; Reliability; Star configuration; Universal generating function
• ISSN: 0360-8352; 1879-0550
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cie.2020.106991

•A k-out-of-(n + 1): G star system with performance sharing mechanism is studied.•The system has one main unit and n reserve units with a star configuration.•The main and reserve units share surplus performance via transmitters between them.•The system is reliable iff the main unit and at least k-1 reserve units are reliable.•An algorithm based on the UGF technique is developed for reliability evaluation. This paper addresses the reliability analysis problem for a k-out-of-(n+1): G multi-state system (MSS) with performance sharing mechanism. This MSS consists of two categories of units connected into a star topology configuration. The first category of unit is a main unit of the system which occupies the central location of the star configuration, and the second category of units are reserve units distributed at the terminal locations. All reserve units are connected to the main unit in a point-to-point manner through the intermediate transmitters with limited performance transmission capacities. Both the performance and the demand of each unit are random variables. The surplus performance of any reserve unit can be transmitted to the main unit through the transmitter between them, and then the excess performance of the main unit can be further transmitted to other reserve units which are experiencing performance deficiency. The system is reliable if and only if the demands of the main unit and at least k-1 reserve units are satisfied after performance redistribution. An algorithm based on the universal generating function (UGF) technique is developed to calculate the reliability of the proposed MSS with performance sharing. An analytical and a numerical example are presented to illustrate the advantages and applications of the proposed method.