Mechanical Engineering Department

Engineering Faculty
University of Indonesia

The Nature of Failure

 Agenda Why does it always
seem we have plenty
of time to fix our
problems, but never
enough time to
prevent the
problems by doing it
right the first time?

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 IMPACT OF MAINTENANCE

Maintenance costs, as defined by normal plant accounting

procedures, are normally a major portion of the total operating costs
in most plants. Traditional maintenance costs (i.e., labor and
material) in the United States have escalated at a tremendous rate
over the past 10 years. In 1981, domestic plants spent more than
$600 billion to maintain their critical plant systems. By 1991, the
costs had increase to more than $800 billion, and they were
projected to top $1.2 trillion by the year 2000. These evaluations
indicate that on average, one third, or $250 billion, of all
maintenance dollars are wasted through ineffective maintenance
management methods. American industry cannot absorb the
incredible level of inefficiency and hope to compete in the world
market.

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 The Nature of Failure
In reliability theory failure is defined as the event when a required
function is terminated.

Point at
What it can do
What it can do which
(resistance to stress)
failure
occurs

What we want it to do What we want it to do

(applied stress)

Equipment fail when can drops

below want LIFE
(when the ability to resist stress
drops below applied stress)

Two key assumptions:

- Deterioration is directly proportional to applied stress
- The stress is applied consistently
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 Age-related Failures
Aging is a Very General Phenomenon!

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 Age-related Failures

Resistance to failure declines varies with age

Resistance
to failure

Stress

No two parts are subjected to exactly the same stress throughout their lives !
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 Random Failures every possibilities is
possible !
Contrary to the idealistic assumptions :
- Deterioration is not always proportional to applied stress
- The stress is not always applied consistently
Resistance
to failure

Stress

example to explain
Graph A : a rock smashes a window pane
Graph B : an earthquake cracks a structure but does not cause it to fail down
Graph C : as in case of thermoplastic materials which soften when temperature raise and harden
again when it drops
Graph D : a part damage during instalation (which might if a ball-bearing is misaligned);
damaged prior to installation (the bearing is dropped on the floor in the parts store);
7 mistreated in service (dirt gets into the bearing while it is in service)
 Random Failures complex items = wider
random failures

In 1978, Nowlan and Heap, cite developments in the field civil aviation. In the 1930s , an air
trip was a slow, somewhat risky affair, undertaken in reasonably favorable weather conditions
in an aircraft with a range of few hundred miles and space for about twenty passengers. The
aircraft had one or two reciprocating engine, fixed landing gear, fixed pitch propellers and no
wing flaps.
Today, an air trip is much faster and very much safer. It is undertaken in almost any weather
condition an aircraft with a range of thousands of miles and space for hundreds passengers.
The aircraft has several jet engine, anti-icing equipment, retractable landing gear, moveable
high-lift devices, pressure and temperature system control for the cabin, extensive navigation
and communication equipment, complex intrumentation and complex ancillary support system.

Combination result :
- increase the number components which can fail, and also increase the
number of interfaces or connection between components. This in turn
increases the number and variety of failure which can occurs.
- reduces the margin between the initial capability of each component
and the desired performance (in other word, the can is closer to
want). Which reduce scope for deterioration before failure
occurs.

Greater Complexity = Higher Performance = wider random failures = no wear-out age applied

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 Potential Failures (PF)
Most Failures give warning before occur, called Potential Failure (initial failure)
(either occurring or about to occur)

But not always accelerate in every curves

The warning time in advance of a functional failure that a monitoring technique

provides is called the P-F interval. P refers to the time at which a potential
failure is detected, and F refers to the time at which the actual failure occurs (see
Figure). Simply stated: the longer the P-F interval, the more time one has to make a
good decision and plan actions. As a rule, better decisions and more planning
time minimize the financial impact of the event on the organization.
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 Potential Failures (PF)
Linear P-F curve

If an item deteriorates in a more or less linear fashion over its entire life, it stands to
reason that the final stage of deterioration will also be more or less linear.

Example:

Linear style usually caused by abrasion, erosion, corrosion, or oxidation

(because these failure mechanisms are intrinsically age related)

Why do linearization ? = Think about cost of data gathering

It is one matter to speculate on the nature of P-F curve in general,

But it is quite another to determine the magnitude of the P-F interval in practice.
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 Determining P-F Interval
Age-related failure mode linear curve
Random failure mode ????
(main problem: unable to predict potential failure to start, so unknown P-F
interval length)
Five possibilities:
Continuous observation
Observing the item continuously until a potential failure occurs, noting when that happens,
and the continuing to observe until it fails completely
Wrong choose of intermittent lead to miss of P-F curve altogether
Impractical method and expensive (especially because it need the item to be really fail)

Start with a short interval and gradually extend it

Start the check from some quite short but arbitrary interval, and gradually increasing it
until we find out what the interval should be
No guarantee the interval taken will be shorter than P-F interval looked for.

Arbitrary interval
Forget P-F interval, do the task (maintenance) at any interval which look reasonably short.
Still no guarantee the interval taken will be shorter than P-F interval looked for (still need
blow-up equipment to get failure)
If true P-F interval much more longer than arbitrary interval taken = too much cost wasted!
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 Determining P-F Interval
Research
Simulate the failure in such a way that there are no serious consequences when it
eventually does occur
However, laboratory testing is expensive
And it takes time to yield result results, even when it is accelerated. (so, it is only worth
doing in cases where a fairly large number of components are at risk

A rational approach
It is either impossible, impractical or too expensive to try to determine P-F intervals on an
empirical basis. On other hand, it is equally unwise simply to take a shot in the dark.
Despite there problem, P-F interval can still be estimated with surprisingly accuracy on
the basis of judgment and experience.
The Tricks:
Ask the right question (how quickly the item fails not, how often it fails)
Ask the right people (people to have an intimate knowledge to asset, the ways in
which it fails and the symptoms of each failure)
Concentrate on one failure mode at a time (focus on )
It must be clearly understood by everyone taking part in such an analysis that the objective
is to arrive at an on-condition task interval which is less than P-F interval, but
not so much less that resourcees will be squandered on the checking process.
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 The Consistency of P-F Interval
The information to determine P-F interval can be vary, (example: information
from operator experience against lab. Test)
Take a Task Interval choose the shortest of the likely P-F interval (if this
choice is long enough not to require a lot of resource to life of the asset, then
the on-condition task is technically feasible.
Next step is to asses whether or not it is worth doing the task.
If the P-F interval is wildly
inconsistent, task interval
become impossible, because
we can be dealing with
sudden failure.

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