Reliability analysis of load-sharing system with the common-cause failure based on GO-FLOW method

•Considering the reliability analysis of the load-sharing system with the common cause failure.•Analyzing the complex relationship of components by the α-factor model combing with the Markov method.•Establishing a new GO-FLOW operator to simulate the load-sharing system with the common cause failure.•Extending the applicability of the GO-FLOW method in the engineering system. The load-sharing system (LSS) with the common-cause failure (CCF) is widely used in industrial engineering applications. If a component in this system fails, the total load is shared by the other components, leading to an increased failure rate of the surviving components. The traditional GO-FLOW method is difficult to calculate the reliability of this system accurately. To address this issue, a new reliability analysis approach is proposed in this paper. In this approach, a new GO-FLOW operator is established to simulate the LSS with CCF. Firstly, the state transfer relationship between components in the LSS is identified. Secondly, the α-factor is used to establish the relationship between the independent failure rate λI and the CCF rate λC. Finally, the Markov method is employed to calculate the transient-state and steady-state reliability of the system, and the calculation process for the parallel system and k-out-of-n(F) system are given, respectively. The feasibility of the proposed method is illustrated through a numerical example of a distributed electric propulsion system. This approach extends the applicability of the GO-FLOW method.