Availability and mean life time prediction of multistage degraded system with partial repairs

In some environments, components might not always fail fully, but can degrade, and there can be multiple stages of degradation. In such cases, the efficiency of the system may decrease. After a certain stage of degradation the efficiency of the system may decrease to an unacceptable limit and can be considered as a total failure. However, the system can fail randomly from any stage and can be repaired. Further, the repair action cannot bring the system to the good stage, but can make it operational and the failure rate of the system will, therefore, remain the same as before the failure. In this study, we present a model for predicting the reliability, availability, mean life time, and mean time to first failure of multistage degraded systems with partial repairs. In the analysis, state dependent transition rates for the degradation process, as well as repair processes, are considered. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the results. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Limited.