Discrete time cold standby repairable system: Combinatorial analysis

ABSTRACT

In this article, we obtain exact expression for the distribution of the time to failure of discrete time cold standby repairable system under the classical assumptions that both working time and repair time of components are geometric. Our method is based on alternative representation of lifetime as a waiting time random variable on a binary sequence, and combinatorial arguments. Such an exact expression for the time to failure distribution is new in the literature. Furthermore, we obtain the probability generating function and the first two moments of the lifetime random variable.