Calculation of Lower Confidence Bounds on System Reliability

A general methodology, based on algorithms developed by the Ad-Hoc Methodology Working Group on Nuclear Weapons Reliability Assessment, is described for evaluating 90% lower confidence bounds on system reliability for configurations of series/parallel circuits. General configurations of non- repeated and repeated components are examined and a method for unpooling data is discussed. A technique is derived for representing m out of n decision logic gates. The methodology is applied to an example of the type of a sophisticated weapon fuzing system. Maximum likelihood estimates of reliability and 90% lower confidence bounds are calculated for the system and critical components are identified. This article is from 'Transactions of the Army Conference on Applied Mathematics and Computing (2nd) Held at Washington, DC on 22-25 May 1984,' ADA154047, p903-937.