Reliability assessment of non-repairable k-out-of-n system using belief universal generating function

Abstract

Some research has been developed to handle aleatory and epistemic uncertainty in various engineering systems. But in this paper, we have established two methods, namely mass distribution and fuzzy reliability theory, to deal with these uncertainties in non-repairable k-out-of-n: G (F) systems, which has not been seen in the past. In the presented methodology, the failure rate (λ) is taken as a trapezoidal fuzzy number. Using the trapezoidal fuzzy number, expression for α-cut of fuzzy failure rate of every component and corresponding fuzzy reliability function has been calculated. Then, masses to the components are distributed with the help of these fuzzy reliability functions. By using these masses, reliability and MTTF of the considered systems have been computed. At last, a numerical example is taken to demonstrate the present approach.