Abstract:

Classical network reliability problems assume both networks and components have only binary states, fully working or fully failed states. But many actual networks are multi-state, such as communication networks and transportation networks. The nodes and arcs in the networks may be in intermediate states which are not fully working either fully failed. A simulation approach for computing the two-terminal reliability of a multi-state network is described. Two-terminal reliability is defined as the probability that d units of demand can be supplied from the source to sink nodes under the time threshold T. The capacities of arcs  may be in a stochastic state following any discrete or continuous distribution. The transmission time of each arc is also not a fixed number but stochastic according to its current capacity and demand. To solve this problem, a capacitated stochastic coloured Petri net is proposed for modelling the system behaviour. Places and transitions respectively stand for the nodes and arcs of a network. Capacitated transition and self-modified token colour with route information are defined to describe the multi-state network. By the simulation, the two-terminal reliability and node importance can be estimated and the optimal route whose reliability is highest can also be given. Finally, two examples of different kinds of multistate networks are given.