Cutset Approach to Reliability Evaluation of a General Network

Abstract

This paper describes a method for finding a reliability expression of a general network through cutset approach. There are many methods to enumerate cutsets of directed/undirected graphs. All those involve mathematics. In first part of this paper, the minimal cutsets are obtained by the technique of merging nodes. The method suggested in this paper needs no knowledge of mathematics in enumerating the minimal cutsets. In second part of this paper, an algorithm has been given for easy evaluation of the unreliability expression. The complement of unreliability expression directly gives the reliability expression.

Indexing terms:

• Network reliability evaluation
• Cutset approach
• Network failure function