Reliability engineering

The first researches in reliability engineering in connection with today s mathematical term started at the beginning of the industrial age. A complete study of the lifespan of a roller bearing was documented as part of a technical railway development. The law of Robert Lusser describes a chain of elements, where the total reliability occurs from the product of the individual reliabilities. This describes the foundation for reliability of 

Until about 1930 the activities in the field of reliability were mainly limited to mechanical systems. The focus of the efforts for electrical systems was to ensure electric energy sources, which means to raise the availability of such. Parallel electrical gearshifts from transformers and transfer units, meaning the insertion of redundancies, were a substantial progress in the electrical reliabiUly. 

Since aU links of are required for a chain to function and the survival probability of each individual link is independent of each other, the survival probability of the entire chain as the product of its individual probabilities is calculated according to the rules of the probability theory as follows  

Researches showed that the maintenance costs for electric systems were twice as high as the procurement costs. This led to the insight, which reliability engineering 

Reliability is one aspect of technical uncertainty. The reUabilily method addresses the prediction, measurement, optimization and maintenance of the reliability of technical systems. This requires the application of statistical and probability theoretical methods. Probability is the only to predict whether or not a product can continue to function for a specific period of time. 

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Does the facility have personnel whose duties include Reliability Engineering responsibilities ... 

T. A. Kletz, Hazard Analysis-A Review of Criteria, Reliability Engineering, 3, 325-38, 1982. 

Introduction to quality and reliability engineering Cash flow... 

The reliability of a product is the measure of its ability to perform its intended function without failure for a specified time in a particular environment. Reliability engineering has developed into two principal areas part and system. Part reliability is concerned with the failure characteristics of the individual part to make inferences about the part population. This area is the focus of Chapter 4 of the book and dominates reliability analysis. System reliability is concerned with the failure characteristics of a group of typically different parts assembled as a system (Sadlon, 1993). 

Other distributions highlighted as being important in reliability engineering are also given below. A summary of all of these distributions in terms of their PDF, notation and variate boundaries is given in Appendix IX. The reader interested in the properties of all the distributions mentioned is referred to Bury (1999). 

Bohnenblust, H. and Slovic, P. 1998 Integrating Technical Analysis and Public Values in Risk-based Decision Making. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 59, 151-159. 

Bracha, V. J. 1964 The Methods of Reliability Engineering. Machine Design, 30 July, 70-76. 

Fragola, J. R. 1996 Reliability and Risk Analysis Data Base Development an historical perspective. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 51, 125-136. 

Ireson, G. W., Coombs, C. F. Jr and Moss, R. Y. 1996 Handbook of Reliability Engineering and Management, 2nd Edition. NY McGraw-Hill. 

Jeang, A. 1995 Economic Tolerance Design for Quality. Quality and Reliability Engineering International, 11, 113-121. 

Kececioglu, D. 1991 Reliability Engineering Handbook - Volume 1. NY Prentice-Hall. 

Lewis, E. E. 1996 Introduction to Reliability Engineering, 2nd Edition. NY Wiley. 

O Connor, P. D. T. 1995 Practical Reliability Engineering, 3rd Edition Revised. Chichester Wiley. 

Sadlon, R. J. 1993 Mechanical Applications in Reliability Engineering. NY RAC, Griffiss AFB. 

Vemia, A. K. and Murty, A. S. R. 1989 A Reliability Design Procedure for Arbitrary Stress-Strength Distributions. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 26, 363-367. 

Vrijling, J. K., van Hengel, W. and Houben, R. J. 1998 Acceptable Risk as a Basis for Design. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 59, 141-150. 

With the Industrial Revolution, life became more complex but it was not until World War II that reliability engineering was needed to keep the complex airplanes, tanks, vehicles and ships operating. Of particular concern was the reliability of radar. Prior to this time equipment was known qualitatively to be reliable or unreliable. To quantify reliability requires collecting statistics on part failures in order to calculate the mean time to failure and the mean time to repair. Since then, NASA and the military has included reliability specifications in procurements thereby sustaining the collection and evaluation of data build statistical accuracy although it adds to the cost. 

Thomas, H. M., 1981, Pipe and Vessel Failure Probability, Reliability Engineering, 2, 24. 

Reliability engineering Materials of constraction Fabrication and inspection procedures Installation procedures Preventive maintenance... 

You can quickly identify these plant sections by reviewing process flow diagrams and valving arrangements. Isolation points are defined by control valves or powered block valves that can be remotely activated. Process hazard analysis techniques help you identify the maximum credible accident scenarios. (Note that manual valves should not be considered reliable isolation points unless they are located to be accessible following a major accident. However, remotely-activated valves can only be considered reliable isolation points if there are adequate reliability engineering and maintenance programs in place.)... 

From a reliability engineering perspective, error can be defined by analogy with hardware reliability as "The likelihood that the human fails to provide a required system function when called upon to provide that fimction, within a required time period" (Meister, 1966). This definition does not contain any references to why the error occurred, but instead focuses on the consequences of the error for the system (loss or unavailability of a required function). The disadvantage of such a definition is that it fails to consider the wide range of other actions that the human might make, which may have other safety implications for the system, as well as not achieving the required function. 

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