Chapter 8: Reliability Engineering and Design

Failure Modes Analysis & Reliability Evaluation

 Reliability evaluation is an important activity for ensuring the reliability of engineering
products.
 It normally begins right from the conceptual design stage of products with specified
reliability.
 Over the years, many reliability evaluation methods and techniques have been developed.
 Some examples of these methods and techniques are:
1. Failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA)
2. Failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis (FMECA)
3. Fault tree analysis (FT
Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA)
 FMEA is a systematic inductive technique designed
 to identify the potential failure modes for a product or a process,
 to assess the risk associated with those failure modes,
 to rank the issues in terms of importance, and
 to identify and carry the correspondent corrective actions out.
 The final goal is to anticipate problems and minimize their occurrence and impact.
 Practically, the target is to prioritize the failure modes (product or process) by an index
usually called “risk priority number” (RPN).
 very useful in designing activities to reduce the criticalities.
 Often referred to by type, such as
 Design FMEA (DFMEA) and
 Process FMEA (PFMEA).
 FMEA group include representatives from
 Product design, testing, materials, suppliers/OEM, manufacturing and assembling,
quality and field service.
 usually organized and conducted by a FMEA process owner.
FMEA Formats and Guidelines
 MIL-STD-1629A;
 J1739 from the Society of Automotive Engineers for the automotive industry;
 AIAG FMEA-3 from the Automotive Industry Action Group for the automotive industry;
 ARP5580 from the Society of Automotive Engineers for nonautomotive applications;
 IEC 812 from the International Electro technical Commission;
 BS 5760 from the British Standards Institution.
FMEA Procedure
1. FMEA group formation and rule sharing;
2. .Product or process analysis;
3. FMECA;
4. Risk evaluation;
5. Corrective action planning.
3 Risk Evaluation
 The risk of each failure is called “risk priority number” (RPN) and
 It is expressed by the product of severity (S), occurrence (O), and detection (D).
 For a generic cause of failure i,
RPNi = SiOiDi
Severity rating scale (MIL-STD-1629A)

Occurrence rating scale (MIL-STD-1629A)

Detection rating scale (MIL-STD-1629A)

4 Corrective Action Planning

 The risk priority number (RPN) permits the interventions to be prioritized
 Pareto chart of RPN
 Occurrence severity matrix
 Causes by occurrence
 Effect classification
Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)
 FMECA differs from FMEA in investigating the criticality of failure in detail.
 This process systematically determines functions, functional failures, and failure modes of
the production system, i. e., the equipment, with particular attention to the related
 effects, severity, and frequency of failure effects.
 A fundamental reference for the FMECA is represented by the MIL-STD-1629A standard.
 It provides two levels of criticality analysis:
 the qualitative and the quantitative FMECA
FMECA – Qualitative
 The qualitative FMECA approach is a direct follow-up of the FMEA result.
Criticality matrix and criticality regions

Criticality matrix, distribution valve system

FMECA – Quantitative
Considering an item having c significant components, the correspondent item criticality is

Where CCi is the criticality of component i defined as

 Where
 m is the number of failure modes for component i and
 FMCij is the failure mode criticality of failure mode j for component i.
 Each failure mode is characterized by a criticality value derived from

Where
 t* is the operating time, CUi (t*) is the unreliability of component i at operating time t*,
 RUij is the ratio of unreliability of failure mode j for component i, and
 PLij is the probability of loss of function, due to the failure mode j for component i.

 The quantitative FMECA requires a procedure based on several steps:

 definition of the reliability statistical distribution for different components of each item;
 definition of an analysis operating time;
 identification of the part of unreliability assigned to each potential failure mode;
 rating of the probability of loss of function resulting from each failure mode that may
occur;
 calculation of the criticality for each component;
 calculation of total item criticality by the sum of previous calculated criticalities.
Example
Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
 A fault tree is a whole set of entities called “gates” addressing the bottom-up transmission of
fault logic.
 These gates represent the relationships of events for the occurrence of a higher event, called
“father event.”
 The higher event is the output of the gate, while the events at a lower level, also called “sons
of the father,” are the input.
Main gates, events and transfers in a fault tree analysis (FTA)
 Probability of event C can be expressed as
OR Gate The

The above equation can be properly modified in accordance with the following hypotheses:
1. A and B are mutually exclusive events:

2. A and B are independent events:

3. Event B is completely dependent on event A:

FTA – Qualitative
 The objective is to identify the minimal cut sets (MCS) of a fault tree defined for a specific
top event in a production system.
 A MCS is an intersection of “primary,” or “basic,” events essential for the top event:
 if a single failure in the cut set does not occur, there is no top event failure.
Fault Tree Construction Guidelines
 It is a top-down process of analysis starting from the top event defined for the system, or a
generic part (subsystem) of the system:
1. Identification of a more detailed event.
2. Classification and 3. Identification distinct causes.
 1 2 3

4. Failure event and absence of protection 5. Concurrent causes.

Example

 The catastrophic top event “reactor explosion”

 The breakage of valves V1 and V2, of pumps P1 and P2, of processor PR, and the absence of
electric power PW are the failure basic events defined for the system.
Example
The proposed fault tree corresponds to the hypothesis of redundant pumping lines in parallel, i.
e., the cooling service is ensured by a single line at least.
Example

If the two circuits are both required simultaneously to supply the reactor’s demand, an OR gate
replaces the AND gate.
Example
Reliability Block Diagram for Blackout (Figure below)

 Blackout happens if both the off-site power and the emergency power fail.
 The emergency power fails if either the voltage monitor or the diesel generator fails.
 The voltage monitor signals the diesel generator to start when the offsite voltage falls
below a threshold level.
Examples
a. The fault tree for the blackout event b. Analyze the following FTA