Reliability analysis of self-healing systems equipped with multi-component protective devices operating in a shock environment

Many industrial systems, possess the self-healing abilities owing to the use of self-healing materials, such as the pipelines with the self-healing coatings. Furthermore, protective devices are installed for the self-healing systems due to the severity of the shock environment. However, no prior studies have evaluated the reliability of selfhealing systems equipped with protective devices. To bridge this research gap, this study first investigates the reliability of self-healing systems supported by multi-component protective devices in a shock environment. When a run of invalid shocks with a certain size occurs, the self-healing mechanism of the system is activated to repair the damage resulting from previous valid shocks. Multi-component protective devices have been utilized for the systems in the hostile shock environments to reduce the risk of failure. When the self-healing mechanism and protection from the devices exert a joint influence on the system, a scenario where the protective devices switch between operating and standby states may occur. The reliability indexes of the self-healing system with multi-component protective devices are analyzed in the case of the shock length and continuous time by a combined method. The applicability of the proposed model and efficacy of the method are demonstrated by numerical examples.