1 Reliability and Availability Characteristics of A Two-Dissimilar-Unit Cold Standby System With three Modes by Using Linear First Order Differential Equations

ABSTRACT: This paper introduces a statistical analysis of a two-dissimilar-unit cold standby redundant system, by which its reliability and availability characteristics are evaluated. This proposed system has been investigated under the assumption that each unit works in three different modes: normal, partial failure and total failure. The failure and repair times are assumed to have exponential distributions. Linear first order diferential equations “are used ” for the statistical analysis of the system. By adopting this mathematically tractable technique, the mean time to system failure “MTSF ” and the steady-state availability A() of the system have been derived. A special case of the proposed “general” system is given in which two “similar ” units are considered