Structural Identifiability and Reliability Assessment of a Nonidentical Cold-Standby System Subject to Progressive Degradation and Imperfect Switching

Nawres R. Neamah, Alaa F. Mahdi, Layla Hindi and Hussein K. Asker

Journal of Applied Mathematics, 2026, vol. 2026, 1-17

Abstract: In safety-critical systems, the assumption of identical components often leads to an overestimation of reliability. This study develops a detailed continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) model for a complex three-unit, nonidentical cold-standby system. The model is unique in that it includes switch priority, progressive degradation (normal ⟶ partial ⟶ total failure), and hierarchical repair, addressing a gap in modeling heterogeneous redundancy. A 33-state CTMC is created and validated using discrete-event simulation (106 trials). Unlike previous studies, we perform a structural identifiability analysis to ensure parameter uniqueness from failure data, along with a global sensitivity analysis using Sobol' indices. The analysis confirms that the model's structure is identifiable. Sensitivity analysis shows that switch reliability is the most important factor Sq=0.387, more so than unit redundancy. The analytical mean time to failure (MTTF) closely matches the simulation results, with a small error ∈

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hin:jnljam:7695725

DOI: 10.1155/jama/7695725

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