Reliability equivalence factors of a general series–parallel system

The equivalence of different designs of a general series–parallel system is investigated in this paper based on the system reliability function and system mean time to failure. The system components are assumed to be independent and their lives to have exponential distributions. Two types of reliability equivalence factors of the system are derived. The results presented here generalize those given in the literature. Numerical studies are introduced to illustrate how the theoretical results obtained in this paper can be applied.