8.3 Single‐Phase System with Single FDEP Group
Based on the PFGE method, a combinatorial methodology is discussed in this section for analyzing reliability of a single‐phase system subject to competing failures involved in a single FDEP group or multiple independent (nonoverlapped) FDEP groups. The method is applicable to any arbitrary ttf distributions for the system components.
8.3.1 Combinatorial Method
Given that the trigger component(s) can only experience LFs. The method contains the following three steps:
- Step 1: Define FDEP‐related events and evaluate event occurrence probabilities. Three events representing different occurrence sequences of the trigger event and PFGE events of the corresponding dependent components are defined as follows:
- E1: the trigger event does not take place (i.e. the trigger component does not fail locally). Assume that the unconditional LF event of trigger component, e.g. A is YAl. P(E1) is calculated as:
(8.7)
P E 1 = P ...
- E1: the trigger event does not take place (i.e. the trigger component does not fail locally). Assume that the unconditional LF event of trigger component, e.g. A is YAl. P(E1) is calculated as: