Reliability analysis of multistate series systems with dependent components

In the paper an approach to the reliability analysis of multistate series systems assuming their components dependency according to the local load sharing rule is presented. There is introduced the local load sharing model of components dependency (of departures from the reliability states subsets) and the reliability function of a multistate series system with dependent components is determined. These results are also presented in case system components have exponential reliability functions and in this case basic reliability characteristics are given.