Dependability estimation for non-Markov consecutive-k-out-of-n:: F repairable systems by fast simulation

A model of consecutive-k-out-of-n: F repairable system with non-exponential repair time distribution and (k-1)-step Markov dependence is introduced in this paper along with algorithms of three Monte Carlo methods, i.e. importance sampling, conditional expectation estimation and combination of the two methods, to estimate dependability of the non-Markov model including reliability, transient unavailability, MTTF, and MTBF. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the efficiencies of above methods. The results show that combinational method has the highest efficiency for estimation of unreliability and unavailability, while conditional expectation estimation is the most efficient method for estimation of MTTF and MTBF. Conditional expectation estimation seems to have overall higher speedups in estimating dependability of such systems. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.