Mean time to system failure analysis of a linear consecutive 3-out-of-5 warm standby system in the presence of common cause failure

Abstract

Studies on reliability characteristics of a redundant repairable warm standby system involving common cause failure are numerous. Little attention is paid on the effect of common cause failure, individual unit failure and repair rates on mean time to system failure and which among the common cause failure and individual unit failure will reduce the life span of the system than the other. In the present paper, we developed the explicit the expression for mean time to system failure (MTSF) for 3-out-of-5 warm standby system using kolmogorov’s forward equations method and perform graphical analysis to see the behavior of common cause failure, individual unit failure and repair rates on mean time to system failure. The results have indicated that common cause failure decreases the life span (MTSF) earlier than the individual unit failure rates. The developed model helps in determining the maintenance policy, which will ensure the maximum overall mean time to system failure (MTSF) of the system.