CONSTRUCTING A SEPARATE RESERVE IN A CHAIN OF LOW-RELIABILITY ELEMENTS

In this paper, we construct upper and lower estimates of the minimum separate reserve of low-reliability chain elements of length m, at which the probability of operability of the entire chain becomes close to unity. The appeal to a separate reserve is caused by the properties of this reserve, established by Barlow and Proschan. It is shown that the upper and lower estimates of the minimum separate reserve are quite close. If the probability of operability of an individual element of the chain is 1/ lnm, then the minimum reserve volume is of the order ln² m.