LECTURE NOTES 2

Failures Inevitable
Nothing can last forever, so, in long mission times, the repair and replacement of
failed parts can be of critical importance. There are many causes of failures of engineering
systems; a few examples are:
design errors;
• poor manufacturing techniques and lack of quality control;
• substandard components;
• lack of protection against over stresses;
• poor maintenance;
• aging/wear-out;
• human errors.
There are three stages of failures in the life of a product: early stage, operating stage, and wear-
out stage as shown in Figure, which is called the life characteristic curve, or bath-tub curve
because of its shape:
1. early failure region (infant mortality);
2. useful life region (hazard rate constant);
3. wear-out failure region.
When the equipment is put into use for the first time any inherently weak parts normally fail
soon. Thus, early hazard rate is very high. But once the weak parts are replaced the hazard rate
falls and is fairly constant, and finally the hazard rate rises again as parts start to wear out.
Region 1 suggests that no item be used unless it has survived this period.
Some reputable manufacturers sell only those components which have survived this period.
Region 2 is the useful life period where hazard rate is governed by chance failure and is fairly
constant. Region 3 indicates that the component should be replaced or scrapped.

Improving Reliability and Safety

Reliability is an important issue affecting each stage of the life cycle ranging from birth to
death of a product or a system. Different stages in the life cycle of a system are shown in Figure
1.2. The first step in the improvement of reliability is to measure and assess the present level
of reliability. One has to identify the important contributors/reasons for improving the
reliability with given resources. It also depends upon at what stage the system is, for example
if the system is at the design stage, only by simplifying the design, using derating and
redundancy, can one improve the reliability. By using good components and quality control
practices, reliability can be improved at the production stage. Good maintenance practices are
the only resort during the stage of usage of the system. Safety is a combination of reliability
and consequences. Apart from increasing the level of reliability for improving safety,
consequences must be reduced by providing protection/safety systems which anticipate the
failures and make sure that consequences are at an acceptable level.

Terms and Definitions

There are a large number of terms and definitions used in reliability, quality, and safety. This
section presents some of the commonly used terms and definitions in these three areas taken
from the published literature.
Reliability: This is the probability that an item will perform its specified mission satisfactorily
for the stated time when used according to the specified conditions.
Quality: This is the degree to which an item, function, or process satisfies the user’s and
customer’s requirements.
Safety: This is conservation of human life and its effectiveness, and the prevention of damage
to items as per specified mission requirements.
Failure: This is the inability of a product or an item to operate within the specified guidelines.
Mission time: This is the time during which the product/item is
carrying out its defined mission.
Redundancy: This is the existence of more than one means to accomplish a specified function.
Failure mode: This is the abnormality of items/parts performance which causes the item to be
considered as failed.
Hazard rate: This is the rate of change of the number of items that have failed over the number
of items that have survived at a specific
time.
Process inspection: This is the intermittent examination and measurement with emphasis on
the checking of processing variables.
Process average quality: This is the expected quality of items from a specific process normally
estimated from first sample results of previous inspection lots.
Sample: This is a group of items chosen randomly and normally from a lot.
Sample size: This is the number of items chosen randomly from a lot to comprise a single
sample.
Quality control: This is a management function, whereby control of the quality of
manufactured items and raw materials is exercised to prevent the production of defective items.
Control chart: This is the chart that presents control limits.
Accident: This is an undesired and unplanned act.
Safety management: This is the accomplishment of safety through the effort of other people.
Safety process: This is a series/set of procedures followed to enable
an item’s safety requirements to be identified and satisfied.
Safety assessment: This is quantitative/qualitative determination of safety.
Unsafe condition: This is any condition (i.e., under the right set of conditions) that will lead
to an accident.
Confidence limits: These are the upper and lower extremes of the confidence interval.
Quality measure: This is a quantitative measure of the characteristics and features of an item
or service.
Quality management: This is the totality of functions involved in determining and achieving
quality.
Reliability demonstration This is evaluating item capability to satisfy required reliability by
actually operating it.
Safety function: This is a function carried out by items which must operate on at least a
required minimum level to prevent the occurrence of accidents.
Reliability model: This is a model for predicting, estimating, or assessing reliability.
Explanation of Some Relevant Terms
Quality
The International Standards Organization (ISO 3534) defines quality as “The totality of
features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and
implied needs.” The definition is based on the following:
• Quality is not absolute but refers to given requirements or specifications.
• Quality is not a physical quantity which can be measured. It is not a single feature of the
product, but a complex set of characteristics.
• Quality is not a two-condition term in the sense that there is quality/no quality, but has a
continuous structure between very good and very bad. Quality management uses quality
assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality. There
are many methods for quality improvement. These cover product improvement, process
improvement, and people-based improvement. Examples of the methods of quality
management and techniques that incorporate and drive quality improvement are ISO 9001,
total quality management, six sigma, quality function deployment, quality circle, and Taguchi
methods.
Reliability
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defines reliability as
the ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated
conditions for a specified period of time.
There are four elements to the definition.
• Ability – expressed quantitatively with probability, refers to the chance or likelihood
that the system or component will work properly. This is measured as a
decimal ratio between 0 and 1 and is usually expressed as a percentage.
• Required function – generally, this is taken to mean operation without failure.
The system requirements specification is the criterion against which reliability
is measured. For this, a standard is needed, which should contain effective
measurement criteria for comparing actual performance to the standard. If the
actual performance falls within the tolerance limits of the standards, the intended
function of the system is treated as successful.
• Specified period of time – nothing lasts for ever and nothing can perform adequately
forever. Therefore, for an intended function a time frame is needed, usually
called a mission time.
• Stated conditions – the product may perform its intended function adequately in
one set of conditions and quite poorly in another. A part designated for ambient temperature
for instance may be totally inadequate for higher and lower temperatures. Stated conditions
include air pressure, temperature, humidity, shock, vibration, etc. An example of a reliability
statement utilizing all four of the definition elements might be: the system or component has a
99% probability of operating at greater than 80% of rated capacity for 500 h without failure, at
ambient temperature 25–50°C, with no more than 55% humidity in a dust-free atmosphere.
Maintainability
Maintainability is the ability of an entity, under given conditions of use, to be restored using
stated procedures and resources. The measure of maintainability is the probability that the
maintenance action can be carried out within a stated interval. Corrective maintenance is done
after the occurrence of failure. However, in order to reduce the chance of failures and associated
inconvenience, maintenance can also be preventive or predictive.
1. Corrective Maintenance
The maintenance is carried out after fault recognition to put an entity into a state in which it
can perform a required function.
2. Preventive Maintenance
The maintenance is carried out at predetermined intervals or according to prescribed criteria
and intended to reduce the probability of failure or the degradation of the functioning of an
entity.
3. Predictive Maintenance
This is a form of preventive maintenance that is performed continuously or at intervals
governed by observed condition to monitor, diagnose, or identify trends in a structure, system,
or components’ condition indicators; results indicate current and future functional ability or the
nature of and schedule for planned maintenance. It is also known as condition-based
maintenance.
Availability
Availability is the probability that a product or system is in operation at a specified time. This
definition can be termed as instantaneous availability. There are several forms of availability.
For example, average availability is defined on an interval of the real line, and steady-state
availability is the limit of instantaneous availability function as time approaches infinity.
Availability is the same as reliability for a non-repairable system. For a repairable system, it
can be returned to service with repair when failure occurs, thus the effect of failure can be
minimized. By allowing repair, reliability does not change but availability does. The simplest
representation of availability is:
Uptime depends on reliability of the system, whereas downtime depends on maintainability of
the system. Thus, availability is a function of both reliability and maintainability.