Optimizing a redundancy allocation problem with open-circuit and short-circuit failure modes at the component and subsystem levels

Abstract

In failure-prone systems, it is important to take into considerations all the failure modes of each component to achieve the optimal system reliability. In this paper, a new series-parallel redundancy allocation problem is presented for a system in which the subsystems and components are subject to two different independent failure modes: short-circuit and open-circuit. It is assumed when a pre-determined number of a subsystem's components fail due to short- or open-circuit failure types, the subsystem fails. Moreover, when more than a pre-determined number of the system's subsystems fail due to short- or open-circuit failure types, the system fails. A new method based on the universal generating function is used to calculate the system's short-circuit failure probability, and the results are validated with the Monte-Carlo simulation. Then, a mathematical model for the considered RAP is presented to maximize the system's reliability. Finally, the proposed model is solved using a genetic algorithm.

KEYWORDS:

• Short-circuit failure
• open-circuit failure
• redundancy allocation problem
• universal generating function
• genetic algorithm

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs program.