Modelling a general standby system and evaluation of its performance

Redundancy or standby is a technique that has been widely applied to improving system reliability and availability in system design. In this paper, a general method for modelling standby system is proposed and system performance measures are derived. It is shown that the proposed general standby system includes the cases of cold, hot and warm standby systems with units of exponential distribution, which were studied in the literature, as special cases. An optimal allocation problem for a standby system is also discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiobjective Optimization for a Standby System by the Surrogate Worth Trade-off Method

This paper deals with the multiobjective optimization problems for a standby redundancy system through the application of the Surrogate Worth Trade-off method. A multiobjective mathematical model is formulated and the problem considered is to optimize system reliability, cost weight and volume, for a given mission time, subject to multiple constraints. The preferred solution of the decision maker is obtained by using the Surrogate Worth Trade-off method. An illustrative numerical example is provided to indicate the efficiency of the proposed method.     

开关寿命连续型n部件冷贮备系统的可靠性分析

为了讨论由n个同型部件和一个转换开关组成的冷贮备不可修系统的可靠度,假设部件的工作时间和转换开关的寿命均服从指数分布、所有随机变量均相互独立,首先根据系统的特征和可靠度的定义研究并求出三部件冷储备系统可靠度的解析式,然后在三部件冷储备系统可靠度研究的基础上建立了n部件冷贮备系统的可靠性关于部件个数n的递推关系式,最终得到系统的可靠度的解析表达式.计算过程对其他多部件系统可靠度的推导有一定的借鉴作用,计算结果具有一定的理论价值.     

Reliability of repairable redundant systems in nuclear generating stations

Markov models are presented to assess the reliability performance of redundant standby systems in nuclear generating stations. These systems are inactive during the normal station operation. However, they are required to operate for a specified period after the loss of normal power supply during emergency. The estimated probabilities of system failure are useful in deciding on the best combination of standby units and repair facilities. The proposed models are applicable to such systems as combustion turbine units in emergency service (Class III power system, emergency power supply system), and pumps in emergency coolant injection system.     

n个同型部件k个修理设备的冷贮备可修系统的可靠度研究

在设定元件的工作寿命和维修时间的分布都是负指数分布,全部随机变量都互相独立,发生故障的元件能够修成新的前提下,对由n个同种型号的元件和k(k≤n)个设备修理构成的冷贮存可修体系的可靠性方面进行分析,构建关于此体系的数学模型,获得了n个同种型号元件的冷贮存体系在k个设备修理的情况下的可靠度,且探讨在修理设备k值不相同的情况的可靠度,并针对n=3的情况下,分析修理设备数不相同情况下的可靠度。     

泊松冲击下冷贮备可修系统的可靠性分析

本文研究了一类由有限个同质部件和一个修理工组成的冷贮备可修系统在随机冲击下的可靠性问题。假设冲击以泊松过程到达。当冲击到达时,它会独立地对系统中工作的部件产生影响,而不会对冷贮备部件产生影响。每次冲击的量都服从某一确定的分布,受冲击的部件以一定的概率发生故障,其故障概率是冲击量的函数,当工作的部件发生故障时,下一个冷贮备部件立即开始工作,当所有部件故障时,系统故障,故障部件按故障顺序进行修理,修理时间服从指数分布,故障部件能被修理如新。本文显式给出了系统首次故障前平均时间、稳态可用度、稳态故障频度等可靠性指标。     

Reliability analysis of two-unit cold standby repairable systems under Poisson shocks

This paper analyses the reliability of a cold standby system consisting of two repairable units, a switch and a repairman. At any time, one of the two units is operating while the other is on cold standby. The repairman may not always at the job site, or take vacation. We assume that shocks can attack the operating unit. The arrival times of the shocks follow a homogeneous Poisson process and their magnitude is a random variable following a known distribution. Time on repairing a failed unit and the length of repairman’s vacation follow general continuous probability distributions, respectively. The paper derives a number of reliability indices: system reliability, mean time to first failure, steady-state availability, and steady-state failure frequency.     

A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for the Redundancy Allocation Problem

The Redundancy Allocation Problem generally involves the selection of components with multiple choices and redundancy levels that produce maximum system reliability given various system level constraints as cost and weight. In this paper we investigate the series–parallel redundant reliability problems, when a mixing of components was considered. In this type of problem both the number of redundancy components and the corresponding component reliability in each subsystem are to be decided simultaneously so as to maximise the reliability of system. A hybrid algorithm is based on particle swarm optimization and local search algorithm. In addition, we propose an adaptive penalty function which encourages our algorithm to explore within the feasible region and near feasible region, and discourage search beyond that threshold. The effectiveness of our proposed hybrid PSO algorithm is proved on numerous variations of three different problems and compared to Tabu Search and Multiple Weighted Objectives solutions.     

An Exact Solution Method for Reliability Optimization in Complex Systems

Systems reliability plays an important role in systems design, operation and management. Systems reliability can be improved by adding redundant components or increasing the reliability levels of subsystems. Determination of the optimal amount of redundancy and reliability levels among various subsystems under limited resource constraints leads to a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. The continuous relaxation of this problem in a complex system is a nonconvex nonseparable optimization problem with certain monotone properties. In this paper, we propose a convexification method to solve this class of continuous relaxation problems. Combined with a branch-and-bound method, our solution scheme provides an efficient way to find an exact optimal solution to integer reliability optimization in complex systems. This research was partially supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, grants CUHK4056/98E, CUHK4214/01E and 2050252, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 79970107 and 10271073.     

Optimal allocation of redundancies in series systems

It is of great interest for the problem of how to allocate redundancies in a system so as to optimize the system performance in reliability engineering and system security. In this paper, we consider the problems of optimal allocation of both active and standby redundancies in series systems in the sense of various stochastic orderings. For the case of allocating one redundancy to a series system with two exponential components, we establish two likelihood ratio order results for active redundancy case and standby redundancy case, respectively. We also discuss the case of allocating K active redundancies to a series system and establish some new results. The results developed here strengthen and generalize some of the existing results in the literature. Specifically, we give an answer to an open problem mentioned in Hu and Wang [T. Hu, Y. Wang, Optimal allocation of active redundancies in r-out-of-n systems, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference 139 (2009) 3733–3737]. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the theoretic results established here.