Markov Approach to Finding Failure Times of Repairable Systems

Abstract

In analyzing repairable systems it is often necessary to determine such parameters as availability, mean cycle time, and mean time to first failure. These and other failure time measures are defined, and methods of calculating them using a Markov approach are developed. Although conceptually simple, these methods are often not practically feasible because of the large number of possible system states. Various special techniques such as lumping states or decomposing the system into independent subsystems are discussed. These techniques, if applicable, can simplify the analysis considerably.