Reliability modeling of complex mechanical system using CTHPN

This paper presents a method using Colored Time Hierarchical Petri Nets (CTHPN) that synthesizes stochastic Petri Nets (SPNs), colored Petri Nets (CPN) and hierarchical system modeling methods. A detailed procedure of dynamic reliability modeling of a complex mechanical system is addressed. It demonstrates CTHPN´s capability of describing complex dynamic interaction among various factors affecting reliability in each level of system, which also accounts for other complexity issues such as multiple failure modes, fault propagation between different system levels and failure mechanisms with degradation characteristics. At last, the CTHPN-based reliability modeling method is validated by conducting an example on a two-axes-position mechanism of a satellite antenna.