Reliability Bounds for Multi-State $k$-out-of- $n$ Systems

Algorithms have been available for exact performance evaluation of multi-state k-out-of-n systems. However, especially for complex systems with a large number of components, and a large number of possible states, obtaining "reliability bounds" would be an interesting, significant issue. Reliability bounds will give us a range of the system reliability in a much shorter computation time, which allow us to make decisions more efficiently. The systems under consideration are multi-state k-out-of-n systems with i.i.d. components. We will focus on the probability of the system in states below a certain state d, denoted by Q_sd. Based on the recursive algorithm proposed by Zuo & Tian [14] for performance evaluation of multi-state k-out-of-n systems with i.i.d. components, a reliability bounding approach is developed in this paper. The upper, and lower bounds of Q_sd are calculated by reducing the length of the k vector when using the recursive algorithm. Using the bounding approach, we can obtain a good estimate of the exact Q_sd value while significantly reducing the computation time. This approach is attractive, especially to complex systems with a large number of components, and a large number of possible states. A numerical example is used to illustrate the significance of the proposed bounding approach.