Reliability of the exemplary multistate series system with dependent components

In the paper a multistate approach to reliability analysis of series systems with dependent components according to the local load sharing rule is proposed. As a particular case, the reliability function of a multistate series system composed of dependent components having exponential reliability functions is determined. The mean values and standard deviations of the multistate system lifetimes in the reliability state subsets and the mean values of its lifetimes in the particular reliability states are determined. Application of the proposed model of components’ dependency to the reliability analysis of the exemplary system is presented. The exemplary system risk function and the moment of exceeding by the system the critical reliability state are given.