On Markov Reward Approach to Failure Criticality Importance Assessment for Aging Multi-state System

Abstract

The paper presents the Markov Reward approach to failure critical importance assessment for the aging multi-state system. Aging is treated as increasing failure rate. Failure criticality importance for multi-state system is directly calculated via calculation of mean number of system failures. The suggested approach presents the non-homogeneous Markov reward model for computation of this importance measure for aging multi-state system under minimal repair. The model incorporates time-varying failure rates into ordinary Markov reward model. Corresponding procedures for reward matrix definition are suggested for this importance measure. A numerical example is presented in order to illustrate the approach.