MEC365

Reliability and Quality Control

Unit -1
Basic Concepts of Reliability
 Reliability
 According to Electronics Industries Association (USA):
Reliability is the probability of an item performing its intended
function over a given period of time under the operating
conditions encountered.
OR
 Reliability of a system is called its capacity for failure free
operation for a definite period of time under the given operating
conditions and for minimum time lost for repair and preventive
maintenance.
OR
 The reliability of equipment is arbitrarily assumed to be the
equipment capacity to maintain given properties under specified
conditions and for a given period of time.
 Availability
 Availability may be defined as the probability that the system is
operating properly when it is required for use.

Therefore, availability is the probability that a system is not failed

or undergoing repair when it needs to be used.

The numerical value of availability is expressed as a probability

from 0 to 1
 Maintainability

 Maintainability is usually expressed as the probability that a

machine can be retained in or restored to specified operatable
condition within a specified interval of time.

It defines the ease and speed with which a system can be restored
to operational status after a failure occurs.

It is also a probability in the same way as reliability and its value

lies between 0 and 1
Relationship between Reliability, Availability & Maintainability

 Reliability, availability and maintainability are closely related to

each other.

 If the reliability of a system is high, then, the breakdowns will be

less frequent and the availability will be high.

 Similarly if the system is capable of being repaired easily (high

maintainability), then also the availability will be high.
Bath Tub Curve
Failure Mechanism
Failure Mechanism
 Failure rate
Failure rate is the frequency with which an engineered system or
component fails, expressed in failures per unit time.

It is often denoted by the Greek letter λ (lambda) and is highly used in

reliability engineering.

To calculate the failure rate, divide the number of failures by the total
number of hours,

such as 4/3,647 = 0.0011 failures per hour. In this example, the failure
rate per hour is so small that it is almost insignificant.

Increasing failure rate is a concept caused by components which are

wearing out.

Decreasing failure rate describes a system which improves with age.

Failure rate
 Failure Density

Ratio of number of failures during a given

unit interval of time to total number of items
at the very beginning of the test
Case: Company manufacturing a product.

Time Units Failed Cumulative Working/Serving

Failure Units

0 100 0

1 20 20 80

2 15 35 65

3 10 45 55

4 5 50 50
Case: Company manufacturing a product.

Time Units Failed Cumulative Working/Serving Failure

Failure Units Density
(fd)

0 100 0

1 20 20 80 0.2

2 15 35 65

3 10 45 55 0.1

4 5 50 50

Failure Density = No. of failures for a particular time period

Total no. of units in the beginning
 Mortality Rate
A mortality rate is a measure of the frequency
of occurrence of death in a defined population
during a specified interval.
 Mean Time To Failure (MTTF)
• Length of time a device or other product is expected
to last in operation.

• Average time that an item will function before it fails.

• Represents how long a product can reasonably be

expected to perform in field based on specific testing

• Used for non repairable products

Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) is the length of time a device or
other product is expected to last in operation.

MTTF is one of many ways to evaluate the reliability of pieces of

hardware or other technology.

Mean time to failure is extremely similar to another related term,

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF).

The difference between these terms is that while MTBF is used for
products than that can be repaired and returned to use, MTTF is
used for non-repairable products.
The mean time to failure (MTTF)refers to the sum of survival time
(up time) for all the components put under test divided by the
number of components, which are failed.
In practice, the Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, 1/λ) is often reported
instead of the failure rate.

If the MTBF is known, one can calculate the failure rate as the inverse of the
MTBF. The formula for failure rate is: failure rate= 1/MTBF = R/T where R is the
number of failures and T is total time.
Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
To calculate MTTR,
Divide the total maintenance time by the total number of
maintenance actions over a given period of time.

Imagine a pump that fails three times over the span of a workday.
The time spent repairing each of those breakdowns totals one
hour.

In that case, MTTR would be 1 hour / 3 = 20 minutes.