Reliability Importance Analysis of a Multi-State System with Binary Components Using Survival Signature

ABSTRACT Reliability assessment of a multi-state system with binary state components (MSS-BC) is highly practical because the assumption that the system has a binary state system (BSS) is often unrealistic in many engineering applications. The main research problem is to determine the state of the MSS-BC based on the minimal path required for system operation and to evaluate its components’ importance. Such information is essential for purposes such as component prioritization, reliability improvement, and risk reduction (RR), allowing for the identification of a system’s weaknesses or critical components and the quantification of the impact of their failures on an MSS-BC. In this paper, a new reliability assessment approach for MSS-BC is presented, based on disjoint product forms of minimal path sets and survival signature. It also introduces methods for the Birnbaum importance (BI), improvement potential (IP), and RR measures using these concepts. Both the numerical case and the case study presented a driving subsystem in aerospace engineering to demonstrate the applicability of the approach for MSS-BC. The proposed technique shows clear superiority and potential for applications in aerospace engineering.