Reliability evaluation of systems with dependent failures

The present paper deals with the problem of reliability evaluation of systems with dependent failures. The model considered here is particularly suitable for 'load-sharing' devices in which the failure rate of surviving components increases as more and more components fail. Also, the model incorporates a single dependency parameter and by giving it different values one may bring within its ambit systems of different kinds, ranging from systems with independent failures to systems which fail with the failure of a single component. Furthermore, the expressions for reliability reported here are computationally quite tractable as they are expressible in the form of incomplete Beta and Gamma functions.