Reliability modeling for mutually dependent competing failure processes due to degradation and random shocks

Many systems are subject to two mutually dependent competing risks namely degradation and random shocks, and they can fail due to two competing modes of failure, soft and hard failure. Soft failure occurs when the total degradation performance, including continuous degradation and sudden degradation increments caused by random shocks, exceeds a certain critical threshold level. Hard failure occurs when the magnitude of any shock (extreme shock model) or the accumulated damage of shocks (cumulative shock model) is beyond some strength threshold level, which is affected by the temporal degradation performance. From viewpoints of Stress-Strength models and Cumulative damage/shock model, a realistic reliability model is developed in this article for mutually dependent competing failure processes due to degradation and random shocks. Finally, a numerical example of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) is conducted to illustrate the implementation and effectiveness of the proposed model.