PROBLEM 4.

An aerospace consulting company is working on the design of a spacecraft system composed

of three main subsystems, A, B, and C. The reliability, or probability of success, of each
subsystem after three periods of operation is displayed in the following table:

These reliabilities have been rounded to four significant digits. The 1.0000 in the first column
means that the likelihood of the failure of subsystem B during the first day of operation is so
remote that more than four significant digits are needed to indicate it.

a. Consider the case of the series system shown in Fig. 5.1. If any one (or more) of the
subsystems A, B, or C fails, the entire system will fail. If Ps is the total probability of success
of the system, find Ps for each of the three time periods.

Fig. 5.1

Solution:

For the first 24 hours,

For a period of 3.3 months,

For a period of 8.5 months,

b. The system shown in Fig. 5.2 will succeed if B succeeds and at least one of A and C
succeeds. Find the probability of success for this system for the 3.3-month time period.

Fig. 5.2

Fig. 5.3

Solution:

The probability of success for the portion of the system containing A and C is

Then

c. For more complicated systems, the use of conditional probability is helpful. If an event A
can be divided into n mutually exclusive subevents B1 B2, ... Bn (n finite), then P(A) =
P(A|B1) P(B1) + P(A|B2) P(B2) + ... + P(A|Bn) P(Bn), where the notation P(X|Y) designates
the conditional probability of X given that Y has occurred.

Consider the system in Fig. 5.3, where the 3.3-month reliabilities of the subsystems A, B, C
are the same as before and the 3.3-month reliabilities of D and E are 0.9216 and 0.9542,
respectively. Use conditional probability to find the reliability (i .e., Ps) of this system for the
3.3-month period.

Solution:

This system will succeed if any one of the paths (A,D), (B,D), (B,E), or (C,E) succeeds. We
can choose B as our focus and assert that PS = P(system succeeds|B succeeds) PB + P(system
succeeds|B fails) (1 - PB). Now we evaluate P (system succeeds|B succeeds). If the system
succeeds given that B succeeds, this means that at least one of D and E would have
succeeded, so

Next we evaluate P(system succeeds|B fails). For the system to succeed in view of the failure
of B means that at least one of the paths (A,D) or (C,E) must have succeeded,so

PROBLEM 5.
In Problem 4a we saw that the total reliability of the system deteriorates rather rapidly in its
present stage of design, with less than a 50-percent chance that it will operate after 8.5
months. The reliability of subsystem C remains nearly constant, whereas the greatest decline
in reliability takes place in subsystem A, which contains a particular part that is expected to
wear out rapidly. The consulting firm is asked to determine if enough improvement could be
made in subsystem A to provide a reliability after 8.5 months of 0.7500. Compute the
improvement needed in subsystem A.

Solution:

Let x be the factor by which the reliability of subsystem A must be multiplied. Then, as
before,

The reliability of subsystem A must be 1.500 × 0.6910 = 1.037. The increase in reliability
cannot be obtained by improving subsystem A alone, since the reliability cannot be greater
than 1.

The next problem demonstrates the combined use of probability and computer simulation to
determine the volume of an irregular solid.

PROBLEM 6.

An internal fuel tank on a space vehicle has the shape of an ellipsoid truncated by three
planes, as shown in Fig. 5.4. Our problem is to determine the volume of this fuel tank. Let us

use, for an example, the ellipsoid whose equation is and with the planes
being x = ±7, and z = -1.5, where the units are meters.

Fig. 5.4
a. If the tank is surrounded as tightly as possible by a rectangular prism with faces parallel to
the planes formed by the coordinate axes, what inequalities must the coordinates of the ponts
inside the prism satisfy? What is the volume of this prism?

Solution:

If (x,y,z) is inside the prism, x must satisfy -7 < x < 7 because of the truncating planes x = -7
and x = 7; y must satisfy -3 < y < 3 because y = -3 and y = 3 are the planes tangent to the
ellipsoid and parallel to the x-z plane; z must satisfy -1.5 < z < 2, since z is bounded below by
the truncating plane z = -1.5 and above by the plane z = 2 tangent to the ellipsoid and parallel
to the x-y plane. This rectangular prism has dimension 14 m × 6 m × 3.5 m, and the resulting
volume is 294 m3.

b. Let Vp be the volume of the prism and let Vt be the volume of the tank, which we are
seeking. If a point is randomly chosen inside the prism, express the probability that it is also
inside the tank, in terms of Vp and Vt.

Solution:

This probability is equal to Vt/Vp, the ratio of the volume of the tank to that of the surrounding
prism.

c. If N points are chosen at random inside the prism and I of these points are also inside the
tank, express Vt in terms of N, I, and Vp.

Solution:

The probability that I points are in the tank out of the N points chosen randomly inside the
prism is approximated by I/N. So we get I/N = Vt/Vp, giving Vt = Vp(I/N).

d. Write a computer program to perform this simulation, using a random number generator to
get coordinates of points within the prism.

Solution: