Product Reliability

ME 6850
ME 685 Product Reliability:

Concepts of engineering statistics, probability, and distributions, Risk and

reliability.

Probabilistic approach to design, Design for reliability, hazard analysis, robust

design, causes of defects and failures, failure modes and mechanisms,

Simulation, testing and analysis of failures.

Materials, manufacturing, and inspectability aspects in design. Quality

assurance, Quality improvement.
 Textbooks:

1. K.K.Aggarwal, Reliability Engineering, Springer (Indian Reprint).

2. L.S.Srinath, Reliability Engineering, East-West Press

3. V.N.A Naikan, Reliability Engineering and Life Testing, Eastern Economy Ed.

4. Patrick O Connor, Reliability Engineering, Wiley

 What is Reliability?
Generally, reliable means dependable and unreliable means undependable.

Reliable product A product which gives trouble free operation during its
expected life time.

However we do not completely rule out the occurrence of failure.

There is always a probability of failure.

Uncertainty in the performance of a product.

This is due variations in:

Quality of components
Manufacturing process
Operating conditions
Skill of the operator etc.
Complexity of product
Reliability Engineering teaches us how to quantify this uncertainty,
using Statistical measures such as :

Probability of failure
Failure rates
Mean time between failures
Availability
Maintainability etc.

Probability of failure of a complex system can be calculated from

component level failure probability using:

Fault-tree analysis (FTA)

Failure-mode and effects analysis (FMEA)
Reliability Engineering was started in USA in the 1950s.

To prevent failures in military electronics packages .

Traditional approaches of improving Reliability:

a) Use very high safety factors. (increase weight)

b) Use redundancy i.e back up systems, or parallel systems.

(increase complexity).

c) Completely redesigning the system

(increase effort and costs).

By using modern Reliability methods this can be avoided to some

extent.
 Product Reliability covers these important topics:

Failure Models: Increasing failure rate, Decreasing failure rate, Constant failure rate.

Component Reliability and System Reliability calculations -Reliability logic diagrams

and Fault Tree Analysis

Maintainability and Availability: Their estimation.

Maintenance Models: Preventive and Predictive maintenance

Load Strength Interaction: How it affects Reliability

Reliability Testing: Weibull analysis, Accelerated Testing, Highly Accelerated Testing

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Definitions of Reliability: R(t):

Reliability of an item R(t), is defined as the probability that it will perform without
failure under stated conditions for a period of time t.

Reliability=1-Prob. of failure

Eg:
0.4 is the probability of failure of a light bulb after say after 10,000 hrs
service.

The reliability of the component is 0.6 at that time.

Equivalent Definition of Reliability:

It is the proportion of samples which have not failed for the stated time,
out of a large number of samples.

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1.0

R(t)

Reliability decreases with time

For Non-Repairable (Throw-away components) the important reliability indices are :

(a) Frequency of Failure or failure rate (t)

This is defined as the percentage of failures in a large sample population over

successive intervals of time (say every 100hrs).

Failure rate (t) may be constant or variable with time.

From this we can find Mean time to failure of a component.

(b) Hazard Rate h(t);

It is the instantaneous failures rate over a very small interval of time.

Used for analytical purposes (as in Markov models).

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(c) Rate of Occurrence of Failures (ROCOF)

This is the failure rate of repairable systems which can be used again and again.

(from this we can find Mean Time Between Failures)

(d) Repair rate

The percentage of repairs done in a sample population in a given interval of time

- defined for a repairable system.

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The true reliability of a component is never exactly known.

Numerical estimates close to this value can be obtained by reliability testing,

empirical failure models etc.

An estimate is obtained by testing many product samples for a specified time

under actual operating conditions in the field,

OR

Under simulated conditions in the Lab (eg accelerated testing).

Empirical expressions of failure rate cane be made from these observations.

The criteria of failure of product has to be clearly defined.

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