Computing reliability indices of repairable systems via signature

The purpose of this paper is to show the usefulness of system signature for computing some important reliability indices of repairable systems. In particular, we obtain signature-based expressions for stationary availability, rate of occurrence of failure, and mean time to the first failure of repairable systems. Using these expressions we compute corresponding reliability indices of all systems with three and four components. Computational results are also presented for consecutive-k-within-m-out-of-n:F and m-consecutive-k-out-of-n:F systems. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.