A new CBDD model for deterministic competing failure analysis

Abstract

A propagated failure from a system component not only causes the component itself to malfunction, but also affects other system components. However, in systems with the functional dependence behavior, the failure propagation from a dependent component could be isolated if the corresponding trigger component fails first; otherwise the failure propagation effect still takes place causing extensive damage to the entire system. Such a deterministic competition between failure propagation and failure isolation effects poses a great challenge to system reliability analysis. In this work, a new combinatorial model called competing binary decision diagram (CBDD) is explored for the reliability analysis of systems subject to the deterministic competing failure behavior. In particular, special Boolean algebra and manipulation rules are developed for system CBDD model generation. The corresponding evaluation algorithm for the constructed CBDD model is also proposed. The CBDD method has no limitation on the type of component time-to-failure distributions. An illustrative example is provided to demonstrate applications of the proposed model and algorithms.