Reliability analysis and layout optimization for a multi-component system with thermal coupling

An important feature of power and electronic devices is that their operation is accompanied by the release of heat, which leads to thermal coupling between components, that is, the interaction of temperatures between adjacent components. This phenomenon reflects spatial dependence and is rarely considered in reliability analyses. In this study, a reliability model was proposed for a multi-component system with thermal coupling and was subsequently extended to a competing failure model. Additionally, considering that different components have different workloads, components with higher workloads should be located further away from each other to reduce the probability of high temperatures caused by the simultaneous operation of the components, thus increasing the system’s reliability. Through the innovative use of the minimum energy criterion, we present a layout optimization approach to this issue. Furthermore, the larger the component spacing, the weaker the thermal coupling effect, the higher the system reliability, and the bulkier the system. Therefore, a trade-off must be made. A redundancy allocation problem was studied, that is, minimizing the system volume while considering a given reliability constraint. A numerical example demonstrates the effectiveness of layout optimization in improving reliability and illustrates the application of the proposed methods.