Reliability Engineering

Quality is observed, Reliability is experienced.

You buy based on quality and re-buy based on
reliability.
An Item’s intrinsic reliability is defined by the
design.
Reliability is one of the most important “qualities” of the product,
it cannot be operationally separated from other product quality
considerations.
 Why do we need reliability ?

In today's technological world nearly everyone depends upon the

continued functioning of a wide array of complex machinery and
equipment.

Repeated failure leads to annoyance, inconvenience and a lasting

customer dissatisfaction that can impact company's marketplace
position. 

It takes a long time for a company to build up a reputation, and

only a short time to be branded as "unreliable" after shipping a
flawed product.
Companies that can economically design and market products
that meet their customers' reliability expectations have a strong
competitive advantage in today's marketplace. 

Continuous assessment of new product reliability and ongoing

control of the reliability of everything shipped are critical
necessities in today's competitive business arena. 
 Economic Aspects

Accurate prediction and control of reliability plays an important

role in the profitability of a product.
Service costs for products within the warranty period or under a
service contract are a major expense and a significant pricing
factor.
Proper spare part stocking and support personnel hiring and
training also depend upon good reliability fallout predictions.
On the other hand, missing reliability targets may invoke
contractual penalties and cost future business. 
 Reliability Definition

Generally defined as the ability of a product to perform as

expected over time.

Formally defined as the probability that a product, piece of

equipment, or system performs its intended function for a
stated period of time under specified operating conditions.

Quality : Conformance to specs at t = 0

Reliability : Conformance to specs at t > 0
This definition brings in to focus four important factors

1. Reliability is expressed as a probability

2. The product / component should deliver adequate performance
over a required duration
3. The duration of the adequate performance need to be specified
4. The environmental or operating conditions need to be specified.
 What is a failure ?

Failure is defined as the lack of ability of a component,

equipment, sub system, or system to perform its intended
function at the required performance level.
 Calculating Reliability

Let ‘N’ be the number of products in the field.

If ‘n’ is the number of products failing up to time ‘t’, the
reliability of the product is

R (t) = (N-n)/N at time ‘t’.

There are two products of the same type but different brand.

For one product, R(100 hrs) = 0.95

For the other product, R (150 hrs) = 0.90

Which product is better ?

Two hundred identical units of a product are tested for 50 hrs.
One unit fails just before completing 12 hrs of operation.
Two units fail just before completing 20 hrs of operation.
Another two units fail just before completing 50 hrs of
operation.
What is the reliability estimate of the product at the end of 50
hrs ?
What is the reliability estimate for the end of each failure
period ?
What is the reliability estimate for each failure period ?
Answer 1:
R(50 hrs) = (200 – 5) / 200 = 0.975
Answer 2:
R(0 to 12 hr) = (200 – 1) / 200 = 0.995
R(0 to 20 hr) = (200 – 3) / 200 = 0.985
R(0 to 50 hr) = (200 – 5) / 200 = 0.975

Answer 3:
R(0 to 12 hr) = (200 – 1) / 200 = 0.995
R(12 to 20 hr) = (199 – 2) / 199 = 0.9899
R(20 to 50 hr) = (197 – 2) / 197 = 0.9898
The required reliability at the end of a testing period is
0.95. A sample of 100 units was taken from a lot
containing 5000 units and tested for the entire test
duration. What is the probability of finding less than 3
failed units at the end of the test period?
The required reliability at the end of a testing period is
0.95. A sample of 100 units was taken from a lot
containing 5000 units and tested for the entire test
duration. What is the probability of finding less than 3
failed units at the end of the test period?

e   x
p( x ) 
x!

where,

•  = average number of defectives

A component has the following reliability function

R(t) = exp –(0.001 t)

t is the time in hrs

5000 units start operating at the beginning of a test. The

units are checked every 100 hrs. Determine the expected
no. of failed units during these intervals of 100 hrs.
Bath Tub Curve
Early failure causes

Poor manufacturing techniques

Poor handling
Poor assembly practices
Poor quality control
Poor workmanship
Substandard materials
Substandard parts
Improper installation
Improper start up
Chance failure causes

Occurrence of higher than expected loads

Occurrence of lower than expected strengths
Misapplication
Abuse
Unexplainable causes
Wear out failure causes

Aging
Wear
Fatigue
Creep
Corrosion
Poor maintenance
Failure rate can be defined as failures per unit operational time.

Failure rate = NF / NB ( T)

NF = No. of units failed during the time period

NB = No. of units at the beginning of time period
T = Time period
Understanding the bath tub curve through strong-weak
population and load-strength interference concepts
LSI- Load-Strength Interference
Time to failure Distribution
 Weibull Analysis

The Weibull distribution can model early life failures, failures caused by
chance causes and other degradation processes. The pdf is given
below.


 1 T 
 T   
 
f (T ) =   e
  
Effect of Shape
Parameter
Effect of Scale Parameter
Failure Rate Function

 1
 t
 (t )   
  
Reliability Function

t
 
 
R (t )  e
 Optimal Maintenance
Maintenance Plans cost prediction

Reliability Function
 Optimal
Mission t
  Test
Reliability
 
R (t )  e Plans

Optimal Likely no. of Warranty cost

Spares failures during a prediction
Inventory period
 Other Costs

Item Failure Mode Frequency Impact Total Loss

Rs. 2,000 /
Pump Fails Bearing Fails 3 per year. Rs. 6000 / year
failure

Impact per Total Loss

Item Failure Mode Frequency 
failure (per year)

Pump Fails Bearing Fails 3 per year 12 lost hrs. 36 lost hrs.

One lost hr = Rs. 10000

Total loss/year due to bearing failure = Rs. 3,60,000
 Burn-In Test Plan

Let b = 0.5, h = 10000 hr

If a minimum reliability goal of 0.80 is to be obtained for 2000
hrs after burn-in, what should be the burn-in period ?

Reliability at 2000 hr without burn-in is

b
– [ T/h]
R=e
0.5
–[2000/10000]
R= =e = 0.64
 Burn-In Test design

R (Tburn-in+ t)
R(Tburn-in ,t) =
R(Tburn-in)

R (Tburn-in+ 2000)
R(Tburn-in ,2000) =
R(Tburn-in)

R (Tburn-in+ 2000)
= 0.80
R(Tburn-in)
Prove that when TTF distribution is exponential, burn
in is not effective.

R(t) = exp(-λt)
 Series Systems

1 2 n

RS = R1 R2 ... Rn
 Parallel Systems

RS = 1 - (1 - R1) (1 - R2)... (1 - Rn)

 Series-Parallel Systems
C
RA RB RD
RC
A B D
C

RC

Convert to equivalent series system

RA RB RD

A B C’ D

RC’ = 1 – (1-RC)(1-RC)
 Reliability Calculation

0.90
0.95 0.95

R=?
0.99 0.99 0.90 0.99

0.95 0.95
0.90
 Warranty (W) Sales Other factors
Duration Price
Type Competition

Reliability (R) Failures Cust Satisf n

MTTF
MTBF

Maint (M) Claims Revenue

Decisions Type
Restoration

Logistics (L) Warranty Cost Profitability

Spares
Transportation
 Warranty Data Analysis
Returns for each month
Month Monthly sales
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1 1623 1 3 5 7 9 11 12 15 17 18 20 21
2 3723 2 7 11 17 20 25 30 33 38 42 16
3 1319 0 3 4 6 7 9 10 12 14 14
4 3600 2 6 12 15 20 25 28 33 36
5 3298 2 6 10 14 19 22 26 30
6 1333 0 3 4 6 7 9 11
7 1584 0 3 5 7 9 11
8 4508 2 9 14 19 25
9 4463 2 9 14 19
10 3176 1 6 10
11 1047 0 2
12 4151 2
Competing failure modes

Mixed population distribution

Multiple stress levels

 M1-114
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 Field Simulation Tests

Stress
Time to failure (hrs)
Exp. Variables
No.
Temp Voltage P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
1 15 250 3125 3800 3250
2 15 260 3300 2625 2750
3 45 250 2825 3500 2950
4 45 260 2800 2250 2125

Factor values within the expected values in field

 Field Simulation Tests

Stress Weibull
Time to failure (hrs)
Exp. Variables parameters
No.
Temp Voltage P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Beta Eta
1 15 250 3125 3800 3250
2 15 260 3300 2625 2750
3 45 250 2825 3500 2950
4 45 260 2800 2250 2125

This can be further used for reliability predictions under duty

cycles
 Accelerated life tests

Types of acceleration

1. Usage acceleration
2. Stress acceleration
Accelerated life tests
 ALT-Accelerated Life Testing

Life

Stress
 ALT-Accelerated Life Testing

Life

Stress

Conf interval?
 Life-Stress Models

Inverse Power Law (IPL) Relationship

Eyring Relationship

General Log-Linear Relationship

ALT-Accelerated Life Testing
 Copper graphite composite

100 µm

10 µm
Failure criteria = 0.4 mm wear depth
 C
L  P, V   .
B

P ne V
HALT: Highly accelerated Life Tests

HALT is primarily a margin discovery

process. Throughout the HALT process, the
intent is to subject the product to stimuli
well beyond the expected field
environments to determine the operating
and destruct limits of the product. Failures
that typically show up in the field over a
long period of time at much lower stress
levels are quickly discovered while applying
high stress conditions over a short period
of time.
HALT Test Plan
 Degradation mechanism based models
Consider a material that continually undergoes cycles of stress
loads. During each cycle, a dominant crack grows towards a critical
length that will cause failure. Under repeated application of n
cycles of loads, the total extension of the dominant crack can be
written as 
Wn =∑yi
Suppose failure occurs at the N-th cycle, when Wn first exceeds a
constant critical value w.
Since there are many cycles, each lasting a very short time, we
can replace the discrete number of cycles N needed to reach
failure by the continuous time tf needed to reach failure.
The TTF for such failure mechanisms can be very well
approximated by a Birnbaum-Saunders distribution
The critical assumption in the derivation, from a physical
point of view, is that the crack growth during any one cycle
is independent of the growth during any other cycle. Also,
the growth has approximately the same random
distribution, from cycle to cycle.