Abstract: In many important engineering systems, standby equipment is used as safety facilities to protect the systems from critical accidents. Starting failure as well as operating failure is the major factor that influences the reliability of the emergemey standby equipment. A method, in which both the starting and operating failures are considered, is proposed in this paper for reliability assessment of the standby equipment, and the probability model based on this method is derived. The application for a practical example indicates that the method has prospect engineering significance.

Key words: Failure, Reliability, Standby equipment