Measuring component importance for network system using cellular automata (Q2424638)

Summary: This paper concentrates on the component importance measure of a network whose arc failure rates are not deterministic and imprecise ones. Conventionally, a computing method of component importance and a measure method of reliability stability are proposed. Three metrics are analyzed first: Birnbaum measurement, component importance, and component risk growth factor. Based on them, the latter can measure the impact of the component importance on the reliability stability of a system. Examples in some typical structures illustrate how to calculate component importance and reliability stability, including uncertain random series, parallel, parallel-series, series-parallel, and bridge systems. The comprehensive numerical experiments demonstrate that both of these methods can efficiently and accurately evaluate the impact of an arc failure on the reliability of a network system.