An improved algorithm for symbolic reliability analysis

Author

Veeraraghavan, Malathi ; Trivedi, Kishor S.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Labs., Columbus, OH, USA

Volume

40

Issue

3

fYear

1991

fDate

8/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

347

Lastpage

358

Abstract

The authors describe an efficient Boolean algebraic algorithm to compute the probability of a union of nondisjoint sets as applied to symbolic reliability analysis. Coherent networks and fault-trees with statistically-independent components characterized by their minimal pathsets or cutsets are used as examples for generating the nondisjoint sets. The algorithm uses the concept of multiple variable inversion originally proposed by A. Grnarov et al. (1979). The authors illustrate improvements in the use of the multiple variable inversion technique for this problem using two examples. The algorithm is extended to compute the reliability importance of a given component (sensitivity of system reliability to the component reliability). A computer program implementing the modified algorithm is used to solve and obtain measured time complexities for a large set of network and fault tree models

Keywords

Boolean algebra; computational complexity; probability; reliability theory; set theory; Boolean algebraic algorithm; coherent networks; computer program; fault-trees; minimal cutsets; minimal pathsets; multiple variable inversion; nondisjoint sets union; statistically-independent components; symbolic reliability analysis; Algorithm design and analysis; Boolean algebra; Character generation; Computer network reliability; Computer networks; Fault trees; Independent component analysis; Probability; Testing; Time measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Reliability, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9529

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/24.85455

Filename

85455