A MARKOV TYPE MODEL FOR SYSTEMS WITH TOLERABLE DOWN TIMES

This paper provides a modelling framework for the use of non-homogeneo us Markovian techniques for components and systems, where the sojourn time at a state, or a class of states, may be limited by a given value . This approach is useful, for example, to build component models with constant repair times, and to model systems or components with tolera ble down times. Tolerable down time models have appeared in the field of Boolean techniques for 10 years. A systematic Markovian approach ap plied to systems composed of several components, allows the interdepen dencies among the components to be precisely treated, which may cause large conservativeness, if the Boolean modelling technique is applied.