A Technique for the Analysis of Repairable Redundant Systems

A new analytical technique is presented for evaluating the steady-state performance of large repairable systems which cannot be described in terms of series-parallel subsystems. The method, which is based on a novel combinatorial algorithm, is used to calculate the frequency of failures and expected failure durations at each node in networks of repairable devices. The networks may have multiple input and output nodes, but the uptimes and downtimes of the devices in the network are assumed to be exponentially distributed and independent. To demonstrate the usefulness of the technique for large-scale networks of general configuration, the solution of a sample problem using a pilot computer program is also included.