Bayesian estimation of system reliability

Consider a binary system of binary components. Assume that we have described our present uncertainty on the reliabilities of the components, at a fixed point of time, by the moments up till order m of their marginal distributions. From these moments bounds on the corresponding moments of the distribution of system reliability are arrived at, improving strongly the ones given by Mastran & Singpurwalla (1978). Our bounds may then be used to fit a proper prior distribution for system reliability, which in turn may be updated by relevant experiments on the system level. The results of the present paper can immediately be carried over to availabilities and unavail- abilities in a fixed time interval for multistate systems of multistate components.