Advanced Electrical Principles

Reliability
221.46 Explain the importance of high reliability in typical electrical and electronic applications.

What is reliability?
Reliability is a design engineering discipline which applies scientific knowledge to assure a product will perform its intended function for the required duration within a given environment. This includes designing in the ability to maintain, test, and support the product throughout its total life cycle. Reliability is best described as product performance over time. This is accomplished concurrently with other design disciplines by contributing to the selection of the system architecture, materials, processes, and components - both software and hardware; followed by verifying the selections made by thorough analysis and test. The importance of high reliability in typical electrical and electronic applications: (i) Provide protection to customer (i.e. against electric shock) (ii) Less maintenance (increase MTBF) (iii) Provide longer guarantee period (iv) To reduce maintenance cost (v) The product must perform satisfactorily for applied voltage and frequency (vi) To give satisfaction to customers in a competitive market 221.47 Define reliability (R) in terms of probability of success for a specified time. Reliability (R) 1. The duration or probability of failure-free performance under stated conditions. 2. The probability that an item can perform its intended function for a specified interval under stated conditions. 3. The ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Definition of Reliability, Unreliability and Failure. Reliability: The ability of an item to perform a required function under stated conditions for a stated period of time. Unreliability: This is the probability that the element or system will fail to operate to an agreed level of performance, for a specified period, subject to specified environmental conditions. Since the equipment has either failed or nor failed, the sum of reliability and unreliability must be unity. Failure: The termination of the ability of an item to perform its required function. 221.48 Define mean time between failures (m). Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) This applies to repairable items and is obtained by running an item for a stated length of time under stated stress conditions and calculating the mean value of the times between consecutive failures. As an example, suppose that an item fails three times in a period of operation 30,000 hours, then the mean time between failure is 10,000 hours. Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) is applied to repairable items, and is a measure of the average time that a particular equipment to fail when operating under specified conditions. MTBF is given by: Prepared by Mr Shakeel Muslun Tel/Fax: 466 8963 / 723 2868 1

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MTBF

Total operating time Number of failure of that time

Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) This applies to non-repairable items, mainly components, and indicates the average time an item may be expected to function before failure. It is found by stressing a large number of the items under stated conditions for a period of time and then dividing the time period by the number of failures. This is the usual method of obtaining the index but another known as mean life is more accurate but not as economical, since it consists of taking a specified number of components and stressing them under stated conditions until all components have failed. The individual times to failure are then added and divided by the number of components used in the test to give the mean life. The disadvantage of this method is that since all components must fail the test may take an unnecessary length of time. Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) is applied to non-repairable parts and is a measure of the average time to failure of a large number of similar parts which operate under specified conditions. MTTF is given by: MTTF = Total operating time for all components Number of failures in that time 221.49 Define failure rate () and explain the unit percent per 1000 hours. Failure rate is the frequency with which an engineered system or component fails, expressed for example in failures per hour. It is often denoted by the Greek letter (lambda) and is important in reliability theory. In practice, the reciprocal rate MTBF (MTBF = 1/ ) is more commonly expressed and used for high quality components or systems. Failure rate () is usually expressed in % per 1000 hr. E.g. The failure rate of an equipment is found to be 16.55% per 1000 hour. Therefore Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) = 100,000 = 6000 hour 16.55 221.50 Draw and explain a graph of failure rate/time for a system (the bath tub diagram).

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Advanced Electrical Principles

Periods of failures The number of failures occurring in unit time is known as the failure rate and the graph above shows this plotted against time for an equipment. Because of its shape it is usually known as a bathtub diagram. From the graph, three distinct areas may be indentified namely the early period, constant period and wear-out period. Early period When an equipment is first put into service certain faults may develop owing to substandard components and some items may need to be replaced. The early failures are of particular embarassement to manufacturers and because of this many of them attempt to give a runningin period to their equipment in order to stop these faults reaching the customer. The runningin time needs to be determined by the complexity of the equipment and previous experience with this or similar systems. Constant period After the initial period comes a time when the faults that occur are purely random or chance faults and during this period it is possible to predict the reliability of the system from a knowledge of the reliability of the individual components, past experience of similar equipment and/or test made on the prototype. Wear-out period As the equipment comes to the end of its useful life so that failure rate increases because, in addition to the chance failures, parts start to deteriorate and wear out. The time interval that elapses before this period is reached may of course be extended by a system of planned maintenance and repair. SUMMARY Early failure period The time when very weak components fail. Cause of failure is due to defective components or bad workmanship. Constant failure period The time during which the component or equipment is most usefully employed. Cause of failure is due to improper maintenance or faulty components. Wear-out failure period Cause of failure is due to aging of components. 221.51 State the relationship between reliability, failure rate and time. Prepared by Mr Shakeel Muslun Tel/Fax: 466 8963 / 723 2868 3

Advanced Electrical Principles

The relationship between reliability (R), failure rate ( ) and time (t) is given by:

R = exp (-t)
Where, R = Reliability e = constant = Failure rate in percentage per 1000 hour t = time in hour

221.52 Draw the graph of reliability/time (the survival characteristic). Reliability Curve

Unreliability Curve

221.53 Use the law of compound probability to show that the failure rates of a system is the sum of the failure rates of all its component parts. Series Reliability If a number of parts of a system are operated in such a way that the failure of any one part causes a failure of the system, then those parts are considered functionally to be in series. If a failure of any part is independent of the operation of the other parts then the reliability of the system is given by the product of the reliabilities of the parts. R(t) = R1(t) R2(t) R3(t) Rk(t) Rn(t) If is a constant,

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Advanced Electrical Principles

Parallel reliability An important method of improving the reliability of a system is the use of redundancy, i.e. the inclusion of additional equipment in such a way that a failure of one part does not cause a failure of the whole system. If the reliability of each part is assumed to be independent of the other parts the the probability of a system failure is Q(t) = Q1(t) Q2(t) Q3(t) Qk(t) ... Qn(t) where Q(t) is the system unreliability. R(t) = 1 Q(t) 221.54 Calculate the reliability of a system from the component failure rates, using given data. Example 1: June 2008 No.6c An electrical system contains the components listed in table 1 below. For the system, Calculate the (i) percentage failure rate (ii) reliability for an operational period of 3000 hours Component Transistor Diode Resistor Capacitor Potentiometer Switch Percentage failure rate (%) 0.12% 0.09% 0.07% 0.15% 0.35% 0.3% Number of components in equipment (n) 30 10 50 30 4 5

n
3.6 0.9 3.5 4.5 1.4 1.5 n = 15.4

Table 1

Solution: (i) Percentage failure rate n = 15.4% Prepared by Mr Shakeel Muslun Tel/Fax: 466 8963 / 723 2868 5

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(ii)

Reliability for an operational period of 3000 hours -t

R = exp
- 15.4 3000 100 1000

R = exp

0.63

Example 2: December 2006 No.6c (i) A navigation system has MTBF of 10 000 hours. Calculate the reliability of it working successfully for 100 hours, 2000 hours, 5000 hours and 20 000 hours respectively. Time (t) 100 2000 5000 20000 MTBF 10000 10000 10000 10000 Reliability (R = -t = 0.99 0.819 0.607 0.135

e-t/m)

(ii) Use the results in (i) to draw a graph of reliability against time. Having found the reliability, then plot the graph reliability against time. 221.55 Calculate the reliability of two identical units employed in a main/standby situation. 221.56 Describe the effect on failure rate of operating components well below their power rating. The effect on failure rate of operating components (e.g. capacitor) well below their power rating. An electric field appears across the plate when voltage source is applied. Therefore the electric stress depends upon the supply source. The electric stress ion the dielectric material is reduced when the capacitor is operating at well below its power rating. Therefore the capacitor reliability increases. 221.57 Describe how reliability may be improved by controlling the environment in which the system operates. How reliability may be improved by controlling the environment in which the system operates. (i) High temperature Cooling fan and heat sink are used to dissipate heat. (ii) Low temperature Heaters are used to keep at a certain temperature. Humidifiers are used to remove humidity. 6

221.58 Describe why the reliability of hardware, firmware and software is important to ensure the Prepared by Mr Shakeel Muslun Tel/Fax: 466 8963 / 723 2868

Advanced Electrical Principles

overall reliability of a computer controlled system. Why the reliability of hardware, firmware and software is important to ensure the overall reliability of a computer controlled system. (i) Hardware (a) Using components of high reliability (b) Operating of units in its proper environment (c) Duplicating of unit or components so that in case of failure of one unit, the other switched on automatically (d) Having trained personnel to operate the equipment (e) Performing planned maintenance (f) Keeping minimum stock of spare parts (ii) Software (a) Having a software with built in program to perform self test each time the equipment is switched on so as to detect faults or malfunction which can be remediate. (b) To have trained personnel to deal with software problems. (c) Having the possibility of upgrading the software so as to increase lifetime of unit.

Both hardware and software must have individually a high reliability because a computer controlled system can be considered as these units performing in series. Hardware Input Software

l l l l l l l l l____________________________l Computer Controlled System 221.59 Explain the importance of accurate reporting and recording of failures. The importance of accurate reporting and recording of failures The importance of accurate reporting and recording of failures of electrical equipment is for a proper planning maintenance, i.e. (i) life time of equipment can be increased. (ii) to have proper management for spare parts in stock, hence cost of spare parts can be reduced in stock. (iii) Repairs done within minimum time and cost, therefore reduce shut down period.

unit

unit

Output

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