Most books in reliability theory are dealing with a description of component and system states as binary: functioning or failed. However, many systems are composed of multi-state components with different performance levels and several failure modes. There is a great need in a series of applications to have a more refined description of these states, for instance, the amount of power generated by an electrical power generation system or the amount of gas that can be delivered through an offshore gas pipeline network.

This book provides a descriptive account of various types of multistate system, bound-for multistate systems, probabilistic modeling of monitoring and maintenance of multistate systems with components along with examples of applications.

Key Features:

• Looks at modern multistate reliability theory with applications covering a refined description of components and system states.
• Presents new research, such as Bayesian assessment of system availabilities and measures of component importance.
• Complements the methodological description with two substantial case studies. 

Reliability engineers and students involved in the field of reliability, applied mathematics and probability theory will benefit from this book.

Bent Natvig is Professor in Mathematics Statistics, University of Oslo.
Member of Research Education Committee, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, 2000-. Member of User Committee, G.H. Sverdrup's Building, 2000-. Guest/Invited speaker at numerous lectures around Europe and America for the past 30 years. Speaking on reliability theory and mathematics and statistics. Research interests include: Reliability theory and risk analysis, Bayesian statistics, Bayesian forecasting and dynamic models and queuing theory. Currently Associate Editor of Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability.