Technical Paper
The Analysis of the Effective Reliability of a System
1970-02-01
700606
The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical technique which expands the classical definition of weapon system mission success probability to encompass degraded mode operation. The approach evaluates the effects upon system capability arising from each degraded state. The normalized sum of the capabilities in all system states, weighted by their probability of occurrence, is interpreted as the “Effective Reliability” of the system. The paper describes the technique of degraded mode evaluation and introduces a deterministic computer program to calculate system state probabilities. A demonstration of the application of the method is provided in the analysis of a fighter bomber system.