RELIABILITY EVALUATION FOR TREE-STRUCTURED SYSTEMS WITH MULTISTATE COMPONENTS

A tree-structured system with multistate components consists of a cert ain number of components which are arranged in a tree structure and ar e capable of receiving and sending a signal. The signal source is loca ted in the root node, the components located in the leaf nodes can onl y receive a signal. Each component located in neither a root nor a lea f node is capable of transmitting the received signal directly to a nu mber of components located below it, where this transmission is possib le only along arcs linking the nodes, in the direction from upper to l ower nodes. A component x is considered to be failed if it cannot tran smit a signal to any other component, otherwise it is in the working c ondition and its state is determined by a set of components receiving a signal directly from x. The whole system is in working condition if each leaf node (which is assumed to be always in working condition) re ceives the signal from the root node.