On the number of failed components in a series–parallel system upon system failure when the lifetimes are DNID discrete random variables

Abstract

In this paper, we study properties of a series–parallel system. The component lifetimes may be dependent and non-identically distributed (DNID) discrete random variables. We consider the number of failed components upon system failure. We derive the probability mass function and the expected value of this quantity. In addition, we find the conditional probabilities corresponding to this variate given some partial information about the system failure. We also provide a numerical example to demonstrate the theoretical results.