Complex Technical Systems, Reliability, Availability and Safety Evaluation and Prediction

The general reliability, availability and safety analytical models of complex non-repairable and repairable multistate technical systems related to their operation processes are presented. They are integrated general models of complex technical systems, linking their multistate reliability, availability and safety models with their operation process models and considering variable at the different operation states their reliability and safety structures and their components, reliability and safety parameters. The conditional reliability and safety functions at the system particular operation states and the unconditional reliability and safety function and the risk function of the complex technical systems independent of the system particular operation states are defined. These joint models of the reliability, availability and safety and the variable in time system operation processes are constructed for multistate series, parallel, “m out of n”, consecutive “m out of n: F”, series–parallel, parallel–series, series-“m out of k”, “ $$m_{i}$$ out of $$l_{i}$$ ”-series, series-consecutive “m out of k: F” and consecutive “ $$m_{i}$$ out of $$l_{i}$$ : F”-series systems. The joint models are applied for determining the reliability, availability, renewal and safety characteristics of these systems related to their varying in time reliability and safety structures and their components reliability and safety characteristics. Under the assumption that the considered systems are exponential, the unconditional reliability and safety functions of these systems are determined. Moreover, in the case of large-scale systems, the possibility of combining the results coming from these joint models and the results concerning the limit reliability functions of the considered systems is briefly presented. The proposed models and methods are applied to the reliability and availability analysis, evaluation and prediction of the exemplary technical system and the port oil piping transportation system and to the safety analysis, evaluation and prediction of the maritime ferry technical system related to varying in time their operation processes, structures and components, reliability and safety parameters.