2025/02/25 by Guglielmo D’Amico, Raina Raj, Dharmaraja Selvamuthu
paper · doi:10.1017/s0269964824000275
This work studies the reliability function of K -out-of- N systems with a general repair time distribution and a single repair facility. It introduces a new repair mechanism using an effort function, described by a nonlinear ordinary differential equation. Three theoretical results are obtained: regularity properties preventing simultaneous failures and repairs, derivation of a Kolmogorov forward system for micro-state and macro-state probabilities, and comparison of reliability functions of two K -out-of- N systems. An additional hypothesis on the model’s parameters allows us to obtain an ordering relation between the reliability functions. A numerical example demonstrates the model’s practical application and confirms the theoretical results.