Motivated by real-world complex engineering systems, this research proposes a multi-state system with two levels of performance sharing. In this system, there exists a unique performance transmitter between any two adjacent subsystems and any two adjacent elements within each subsystem. Surplus performance of a subsystem or an element can only be transmitted to its adjacent subsystems or elements. We build the reliability model of the proposed system and suggest a corresponding reliability evaluation algorithm by extending the existing universal generating function technique. Since the performance sharing is only allowed between adjacent subsystems and elements, the element allocation and sequencing will affect the system reliability. Due to the complexity of the combinatorial optimization problem, we use the genetic algorithm to find the optimal allocation and sequencing of the elements. An analytical example is provided to illustrate the reliability evaluation algorithm. Numerical experiments are carried out to demonstrate how the optimal allocation and sequencing as well as the capacities of the performance transmitters affect the system reliability.

受现实世界中复杂的工程系统的激励，本研究提出了一种具有两个性能共享级别的多状态系统。在该系统中，在任何两个相邻子系统与每个子系统内的任何两个相邻元件之间都存在一个独特的性能发送器。子系统或元素的过剩性能只能传递到其相邻的子系统或元素。我们建立了所提出系统的可靠性模型，并通过扩展现有的通用生成函数技术，提出了相应的可靠性评估算法。由于仅在相邻子系统和元素之间允许性能共享，因此元素分配和排序将影响系统可靠性。由于组合优化问题的复杂性，我们使用遗传算法找到元素的最佳分配和排序。提供了一个分析示例来说明可靠性评估算法。进行了数值实验，以证明最佳分配和排序以及性能变送器的容量如何影响系统可靠性。