Abstract
Article history: Received September 22 2013 Received in Revised Format April 6 2014 Accepted May 18 2014 Available online May 25 2014 The purpose of this paper is to discuss the state of the art on models and methods for reliability optimization problems (ROPs) including reliability allocation, redundancy allocation and reliability-redundancy allocation. There are literally few surveys for reviewing the literature of the ROPs. Tillman et al. (1980) classified the related papers by system structure, problem type, and solution methods, separately. In another work, Tzafestas (1980) reviewed system reliability optimization models and the optimization techniques. Yearout (1986) reviewed the literature related to standby redundancy. Kuo (2000) studied the system reliability optimization based on system structure and solution methods. Kuo and Prasad (2004) overviewed system reliability optimization methods. Later, Kuo (2007) reviewed recent advances in optimal reliability allocation problems. The present study adds to the previous literature surveys and focuses mainly on papers after year 2000 but with a quick review on the previous works so that the readers become familiar with the existing approaches. This research investigates the literature from system structure, system performance, uncertainty state and solution approach standpoints, simultaneously.
Highlights
To be more competitive in the market, the reliabilities of systems or products need to be optimized by system designers
Kumar et al (2011) extended the concept of fuzzy set by idea of triangular intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) and proposed a general procedure to construct the membership function and non-membership function of the reliability function using intuitionistic fuzzy failure rate
Three types of reliability optimization methods including redundancy allocation, reliability allocation and reliability-redundancy allocation have been investigated from different perspectives, which have been collected in a table format
Summary
To be more competitive in the market, the reliabilities of systems or products need to be optimized by system designers. The models have been formulated with different system structures and with different performance measures such as reliability, availability, mean time to failure (average life), percentile life, etc.
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