Network reliability evaluation

This article, beyond presenting a spectrum of network reliability methods studied in the past decades, describes a scalable innovative 'overlap technique' to tackle large complex networks' reliability evaluation difficulties, which cannot be handled by straightforward reliability block diagramming (RBD) techniques used for the simple parallel-series topologies. Examples are shown on how to apply the overlap algorithm to compute the ingress-egress reliability. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the methods discussed. (1) Static (time independent), (2) dynamic (time dependent) using a versatile Weibull distribution to represent the multiple stages of network components from infancy to useful life period and to wearout, and (3) multistate versions to include derated behavior beyond conventional working and nonworking states, are illustrated for calculating the directional source-target (s-t) reliability of complex networks by using the Java software ERBDC: Exact Reliability Block Diagramming Calculator. (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.