Modeling the probability of failure on demand (pfd) of a 1-out-of-2 system in which one channel is “quasi-perfect”

Xingyu Zhao*, Bev Littlewood, Andrey Povyakalo, Lorenzo Strigini, David Wright

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)
7 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Our earlier work proposed ways of overcoming some of the difficulties of lack of independence in reliability modeling of 1-out-of-2 software-based systems. Firstly, it is well known that aleatory independence between the failures of two channels A and B cannot be assumed, so system pfd is not a simple product of channel pfds. However, it has been shown that the probability of system failure can be bounded conservatively by a simple product of pfdA and pnpB (probability not perfect) in those special cases where channel B is sufficiently simple to be possibly perfect. Whilst this “solves” the problem of aleatory dependence, the issue of epistemic dependence remains: An assessor's beliefs about unknown pfdA and pnpB will not have them independent. Recent work has partially overcome this problem by requiring only marginal beliefs – at the price of further conservatism. Here we generalize these results. Instead of “perfection” we introduce the notion of “quasi-perfection”: a small pfd practically equivalent to perfection (e.g. yielding very small chance of failure in the entire life of a fleet of systems). We present a conservative argument supporting claims about system pfd. We propose further work, e.g. to conduct “what if?” calculations to understand exactly how conservative our approach might be in practice, and suggest further simplifications.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)230-245
Number of pages16
JournalReliability Engineering and System Safety
Volume158
Early online date28 Sept 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2017

Keywords

  • 1-out-of-2 system reliability
  • Fault-free software
  • Probability of perfection
  • Program perfection
  • Quasi-perfection
  • Software diversity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
  • Applied Mathematics

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