Abstract
A consecutive-k-out-of-n:F system is an ordered sequence of n components. This system fails if and only if at least k consecutive components fail. The optimal assignment problem in linear consecutive-k-out-of-n:F system is to obtain which assignment (optimal assignment)has the largest system reliability in all the assignments of components when all components don't have the same failure-probability necessarily. In this paper, a branch and bound algorithm is proposed for the optimal assignment prob-lem in linear consecutive-k-out-of-n:F system. This algorithm has the procedure with 1)searching only the assignment holding necessary conditions for optimal assignment and 2)ob-taining their system and subsystem reliabilities and 3)removing searches to no useful assign-ments. Some numerical examples will ahow that the proposed algorithm is useful with a personal computer.
