Reliability analysis of multi-state systems with common cause failure based on Bayesian Networks

Taking account of the influence of common cause failure (CCF) to system reliability, a method for reliability modeling and assessment of a multi-state system with common cause failure based on Bayesian Network (BN) is proposed by using the advantage of uncertainty reasoning and figurative expression of BN. The model is applied to a two-axis positioning mechanism transmission system to demonstrate its effectiveness and ability to directly calculate the system reliability on the basis of multi-state probabilities of elements. The comparison between the proposed method and the method without considering CCF verifies the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.