ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses methods to model the relationship between system components, which is used to determine overall system reliability. The physical configuration of an item that belongs to a system is often used to model system reliability. In some cases, the manner in which an item fails is important for system failure, and should be considered in the system reliability analysis. There are several system modeling schemes for reliability analysis. The chapter describes the following modeling schemes: reliability block diagram, which includes parallel, series, standby, shared load, and complex systems; fault tree and success tree methods, which include the method of construction and evaluation of the tree; event tree method, which includes modeling of multisystem designs and complex systems whose individual units should work in a chronological or approximately chronological manner to achieve a mission; failure mode and effect analysis; and Master Logic Diagram (MLD).
