NON-REGENERATIVE STOCHASTIC PETRI NETS - MODELING AND ANALYSIS

We develop a new class of stochastic Petri net. non-regenerative stoch astic Petri net (NRSPN), which allows the firing time of its transitio ns with arbitrary distributions, and can automatically generate a boun ded reachability graph that is equivalent to a generalization of the M arkov renewal process in which some of the states may not constitute r egeneration points. Thus, it can model and analyze behavior of a syste m whose states include some non-regeneration points. We show how to mo del a system by the NRSPN, and how to obtain numerical solutions For t he NRSPN model. The probabilistic behavior of the modeled system can b e clarified with the reliability measures such as the steady-state pro bability, the expected numbers of visits to each slate per unit lime, availability, unavailability and mean time between system failure. Fin ally, to demonstrate the modeling ability and analysis power of the NR SPN model, we present an example for a fault-tolerant system using the NRSPN and give numerical results for specific distributions.