The purpose of this paper is to present a new methodology, named vague lambda‐tau, used for reliability analysis of a combustion system, which could be used for managerial decision making and future system maintenance strategy.
This paper involves the qualitative and quantitative analysis of a combustion system. In qualitative analysis, the Petri net model is obtained from its equivalent fault tree and in quantitative analysis, the reliability parameters are evaluated using vague lambda‐tau methodology. Further, a decision support system based on vague sets is developed to overcome the limitations of traditional risk analysis.
The reliability parameters (such as expected number of failures, mean time between failures, availability, and reliability) of the compressor system are evaluated. The proposed, vague sets‐based reliability analysis and risk analysis not only overcome the limitations associated with traditional approaches but also integrate the confidence level of domain experts and expert's experience, in a more flexible and realistic manner.
Instead of fuzzy sets, this paper used vague sets for reliability analysis with Petri net modelling because in real life problems, there may be hesitation regarding the belongingness of an object to a set or not. In fuzzy set theory, there is no means to incorporate such type of hesitation.
