Analysis of component failures dependency influence on system lifetime

In the paper the results of the reliability investigation of multi-state homogeneous parallel-series systems with independent and dependent components are presented. The multi-state reliability functions of such systems and other reliability characteristics in both cases are determined under the assumption that their components have exponential reliability function. Moreover the asymptotic approach to the reliability evaluation of these systems is also presented and the classes of limit reliability functions for the considered systems in both cases are fixed. Finally, the presented theoretical results are applied to the reliability evaluation of the shipyard rope transportation system. The comparison of the multi-state exact and limit reliability functions of the considered transportation system under the assumption that its components are independent and under the assumption that its components have failure dependency is performed and illustrated graphically.