Abstract
Due to the demands on the engineering profession, all products and systems are expected to satisfy certain availability requirements. The availability is a measure of the readiness of a product or system for use at any specified time. In this work, the availability of single-component systems is addressed. Monte Carlo simulation is used to estimate the availability of the system, assuming that the failure and repair times follow exponential, normal (Gaussian), and uniform probability distributions. The results are compared. Although the availability functions look very different, the steady-state availability is the same for all. Also, the availability of a component whose hazard function follows the bathtub curve is estimated, and it is found that the exponential distribution is not a good approximation, especially at the earliest stages of operation.