An Archimedean Copulas-Based Approach for m-Consecutive-k-Out-of-n: F Systems with Exchangeable Components

It is evident that several real-life applications, such as telecommunication systems, call for the establishment of consecutive-type networks. Moreover, some of them require more complex connectors than the ones that exist already in the literature. Thereof, in the present work we provide a signature-based study of a reliability network consisting of identical m-consecutive-k-out-of-n: F structures with exchangeable components. The dependency of the components of each system is modeled with the aid of well-known Archimedean copulas. Exact formulae for determining the expected lifetime of the underlying reliability scheme are provided under different Archimedean copulas-based assumptions. Several numerical results are carried out to shed light on the performance of the resulting consecutive-type design. Some thoughts on extending the present study to more complex consecutive-type reliability structures are also discussed.