Reliability Evaluation for Mechanical Systems by Petri Nets

The current trend in mechanical engineering is to design mechanical systems with higher stability, reliability, availability and operability. In order to meet the requirement of high reliability for a machine, it is of great importance for designers to seek the weak links in the system and learn the state of the key subsystems, carrying out the remedial measures when necessary. Hence, behavior modeling and failure analysis are the two aspects seriously concerned in the reliability evaluation in mechanical systems. This chapter will introduce new methodologies that use the fuzzy reasoning Petri net (FRPN) models to evaluate the reliability of mechanical systems in reliability prediction, reliability apportionment and reliability analysis. Cases are proposed by analyzing a space- craft solar array system using the proposed method. Results indicate that the Petri nets models can contribute to a higher accuracy in reliability evaluation for mechanical systems.