A Fast Algorithm for Reliability Evaluation

Abstract

An algorithm is developed to obtain a simplified reliability expression for a general network. All the success paths of the network are determined; then they are modified to be mutually disjoint. The reliability expression follows directly from the disjoint paths. The algorithm is easy and computationally economical. The reliability expression involves fewer terms and arithmetic operations than any of the existing methods. This is an advantage, considering the size of the system a reliability engineer normally handles and the frequency with which the expression is used for reliability studies.