System reliability evaluation and dynamic optimization based on an improved reliability block diagram

Abstract

Reliability block diagram (RBD) is an effective tool for modeling and evaluating system reliability. During operation, a system’s reliability may decrease significantly due to the failure of certain critical nodes and thus should be reconfigured. This paper presents a framework for system reliability evaluation and dynamic optimization based on RBD, designed from the perspective of system users. First, we improve the classic RBD model with a new encoding scheme and develop an accurate RBD computation algorithm that is easily recognized by computers and highly efficient. Second, we create an optimization algorithm based on Tabu Search to reconfigure the system after node failure, striking a balance between system reliability recovery and RBD variation amplitude. Finally, we provide some numerical examples and a computational experiment based on a practical instance from a navy fleet to demonstrate the correctness and effectiveness of our proposed methods.