Analysis of reliability block diagrams with multiple blocks per component

Abstract

A practical reliability analysis method is described for a reliability block diagram (RBD) in which some components appear more than once in the diagram, i.e. have multiple blocks. The reliability analysis method for a RBD with multiple blocks must include the effect of the multiple blocks, if not, the resulting downtime can be significantly underestimated. An example is given to show the effects of including and not including the multiple-block effect in the reliability analysis.<>