Reliability assessments of mechatronic systems, considering covariates, are becoming more complex not just as a result of the integration of more diverse technologies into such systems but also because of increasing complexities in system topology; but traditional reliability assessment models with covariates tend to ignore the influence of system topology. This paper addresses such an exclusion and proposes a novel methodology dedicated to the analysis and quantification of system reliability using system topology and multiple covariates. There are essentially two new aspects contributing to the overall methodology. Firstly, using network theory, the system topology is abstracted as a network; in which network nodes represent a mechatronic system's minimum maintenance units, and the connections between them are regarded as edges. Secondly, the resultant topological network is combined with the inherent properties of the minimum maintenance units to construct the system baseline hazard function and considering the associated multi covariates from the perspective of failure propagation to provide a foundation for assessing system reliability. To validate the proposed methodology, by way of a case study, it was applied to the reliability assessment of a traction power supply system for a high-speed train. The results, compared with three other assessment approaches, suggest that the proposed methodology provides for significantly more accurate assessments while requiring less computational resources. Furthermore, it can be flexibly extended to many other mechatronic systems.

中文翻译：

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考虑系统拓扑多协变量的机电系统可靠性评估

考虑到协变量，机电系统的可靠性评估变得越来越复杂，这不仅是因为将更多不同的技术集成到此类系统中，而且还因为系统拓扑结构日益复杂；但具有协变量的传统可靠性评估模型往往忽略系统拓扑的影响。本文解决了这种排除问题，并提出了一种新方法，专门用于使用系统拓扑和多协变量分析和量化系统可靠性。主要有两个新方面有助于整体方法论。首先，利用网络理论，将系统拓扑抽象为网络；其中网络节点代表机电系统的最小维护单元，它们之间的连接被视为边。其次，得到的拓扑网络结合最小维护单元的固有特性构建系统基线危险函数，并从故障传播的角度考虑相关的多协变量，为评估系统可靠性提供基础。为了验证所提出的方法，通过案例研究，将其应用于高速列车牵引供电系统的可靠性评估。与其他三种评估方法相比，结果表明所提出的方法提供了更准确的评估，同时需要更少的计算资源。此外，它可以灵活地扩展到许多其他机电系统。