Reliability of multi-states system with load sharing and propagation failure dependence

The paper presents an approach for evaluating the performance distribution of complex series-parallel or parallel-series multi-states system with dependent components. Dependency introduced concerns the common cause failures and the load sharing between system components. The case studied is when common cause failures are caused by propagation failure which has a selective effect, i.e. the propagation failure originated from different system elements causes the failures of different sets of elements. The approach is based on the hybridization of Markov process and the universal generating function. It allows the study of the system with component states characterized by their transition rates. Then, the technique is extended to take into account the load sharing dependence. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the importance of incorporating load sharing on the reliability study.