Optimal loading and protection of multi-state systems considering performance sharing mechanism

• Performance sharing of multi-state systems is considered.
• The effect of load on system elements is analyzed.
• Joint optimization model of element loading and protection is formulated.
• Genetic Algorithms are adapted to solve the reliability optimization problem.

Engineering systems are designed to carry the load. The performance of the system largely depends on how much load it carries. On the other hand, the failure rate of the system is strongly affected by its load. Besides internal failures, such as fatigue and aging process, systems may also fail due to external impacts such as nature disasters and terrorism. In this paper, we integrate the effect of loading and protection of external impacts on multi-state systems with performance sharing mechanism. The objective of this research is to determine how to balance the load and protection on system elements. An availability evaluation algorithm of the proposed system is suggested and the corresponding optimization problem is solved utilizing genetic algorithms.