Computation of the moments of the time between failures for a class of repairable systems

In this paper a computational algorithm is derived for the determination of the moments of the time between failures for a class of repairable systems whose components have prescribed failure distributions. Such systems are generally non-Markovian and the approach adopted here approximates system behaviour by application of the method of stages. Computation of the first moment (the mean time between failures), for the class of systems considered, was posed as an unsolved problem in an earlier issue of this journal.