Introduction to Reliability Engineering Page 12

Assuming all the parts in a system are independently exponentially distributed, i.e. one part
does not cause the other to fail then the overall system failure rate can be calculated using the
series system model shown above. For example, the failure rate of a printed circuit board is
the sum of the failure rates of each of the components.

For example:

Component type Quantity Failure rate Quantity*failure rate

Ceramic capacitor 30 0.00001 * 10-6 0.0003 * 10-6

Tantalum capacitor 10 0.0003 * 10-6 0.003 * 10-6

Carbon resistor 30 0.00001 * 10-6 0.0003 * 10-6

Diodes 10 0.0002 * 10-6 0.002 * 10-6

Transistors 15 0.0005 * 10-6 0.0075 * 10-6

Logic IC 20 0.001 * 10-6 0.020 * 10-6

PCB failure rate = 0.035800 * 10-6

The failure rates for components can be estimated from company in-service databases or can
be attained from published handbooks and published data.

KEY POINTS

• PDF, CDF, Reliability function and hazard function

• Bath-tub curve – infant mortality, useful life and wear-out

• Exponential distribution most widely used – constant hazard function

• Weibull with shape parameter, can model decreasing and increasing hazard function.
When Beta =1 is equal to exponential. Characteristic life is the 63rd percentile

• Series systems modelling used for estimating system reliability by using parts count
method

3 Design for reliability

The objective of design for reliability is to design a given product that meets its requirements
under the specified environmental conditions. To achieve this good sound engineering design

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rules should be followed. However there are a few general principles that should observed,
these include:

• Component selection – well-established and known components should be used

(company usually have their own approved components list). If this is not he case
then analysis must be done to check the component is fit for purpose.

• Consider the load-strength relationship and ensure there is an adequate safety margin.

• Minimum complexity

• Diversity – avoids common mode failures

• Analyse failure modes and their effects (FMEA)

• Identify any single point failures and either mitigate or design them out.

• Use lessons learned from previous products to design out any known weaknesses.

Ultimately the aim is to maximise reliability during service life by:

• Measurement & control of manufacturing quality / screening

• Optimized design & build process to improve intrinsic reliability

• Assure no systematic faults present in product

• Provide sufficient margin to meet life requirements

3.1 Product life cycle

Each product has a life cycle, figure 10 illustrates a generic product life cycle. There are a
number of tools and techniques that are most useful at various stages of the product life cycle.
For example, at the design stage, it is most appropriate to use techniques that will be useful
for design reviews. Testing parts for fitness of purpose using accelerated life testing is also
necessary at this stage. When the product has been built it becomes costly to change the
design so all design reviews need to be done as early as possible in the product life cycle.

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Design
FMECA, FTA, PoF,RBD
FE,accelerated life test

Development
Development Test
Use
Field data analysis
FRACAS

Test Manufacture
ESS, Burn-in
SPC

Figure 10: Product life cycle

Development testing is used to investigate the robustness of the product and to identify any
design weaknesses with respect to the load. Development testing incorporates environmental
testing and is used for fitness of purpose of the product.

When the product has been developed, the design closed and ready for production, statistical
process control and other quality engineering tools are imperative for ensuring a good quality
product.

Environmental stress screening or burn-in is sometimes used to test all manufactured units
prior to release to the customer. The purpose of ESS is to identify any manufacturing
weaknesses in individual items.

When in-service, product performance data should be collected to check the product
reliability and also to feed forward to new product design in the form of lessons learned.

More discussion on some of these tools and techniques is given in later sections.

3.2 Reliability tools and techniques

3.2.1 Introduction

Some of the tools that are useful during the design stage can be thought of as tools for fault
avoidance. The fall into two general methods, bottom-up and top-down.

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3.2.2 Top-down method

• Undesirable single event or system success at the highest level of interest (the top event)
should be defined.

• Contributory causes of that event at all levels are then identified and analysed.

• Start at highest level of interest to successively lower levels

• Event-oriented method

• Useful during the early conceptual phase of system design

• Used for evaluating multiple failures including sequentially related failures and common-
cause events

Some examples of top-down methods include: Fault tree analysis (FTA); Reliability block
diagram (RBD) and Markov analysis

Fault tree analysis

Fault tree analysis is a systematic way of identifying all possible faults that could lead to
system fail-danger failure. The FTA provides a concise description of the various
combinations of possible occurrences within the system that can result in predetermined
critical output events. The FTA helps identify and evaluate critical components, fault paths,
and possible errors. It is both a reliability and safety engineering task, and it is a critical data
item that is submitted to the customer for their approval and their use in their higher-level
FTA and safety analysis. The key elements of a FTA include:

– Gates represent the outcome

– Events represent input to the gates

– Cut sets are groups of events that would cause a system to fail

The following diagram shows the flowchart symbols that are used in fault tree analysis in
order to aid with the correct reading of the fault tree.

FTA can be done qualitatively by drawing the tree and identifying all the basic events.
However to identify the probability of the top event then probabilities or reliability figures
must be input for the basic events. Using logic the probabilities are worked up to given a
probability that the top event will occur. Often the data from an FMEA are used in
conjunction with an FTA.

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A rectangle signifies a fault or undesired event caused by one or more preceding

causes acting through logic gates

Circle signifies a primary failure or basic fault that requires no further development

Diamond denotes a secondary failure or undesired event but not developed further

And gate denotes that a failure will occur if all inputs fail (parallel redundancy)

Or gate denotes a failure will occur if any input fails (series reliability)

Transfer event

• FTA is used to:

– investigate potential faults;

– its modes and causes;

– and to quantify their contribution to system unreliability in the course of

product design .

Reliability block diagram

The RBD is discussed and shown in section 2.4 above. It is however among the first tasks to
be completed. It model system success and gives results for the total system. As shown in
section 2.4, it deals with different system configuration, including, parallel, redundant,
standby and alternative functional paths. It doesn’t provide any fault analysis and uses
probabilistic measures to calculate system reliability.

3.2.3 Bottom-up method

• Identify fault modes at the component level

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• For each fault mode the corresponding effect on performance is deduced for the next
higher system level

• The resulting fault effect becomes the fault mode at the next higher system level, and
so on

• Successive iterations result in the eventual identification of the fault effects at all
functional levels up to the system level.

• Rigorous in identifying all single fault modes

• Initially may be qualitative

Some examples of bottom-up methods include: Event tree analysis (ETA); FMEA and Hazard
and operability study (HAZOP).

Event tree analysis

• considers a number of possible consequences of an initiating event or a system failure.

• may be combined with a fault tree

• used when it is essential to investigate all possible paths of consequent events their
sequence

• analysis can become very involved and complicated when analysing larger
systems

Example:

A PA1 = 0.5 C1 Pc1 = 0.5 Car came to slow stop, no

damage to the car, other
property or injuries Pc1=0.5
C C2 Pc2 = 0.4 Car came to slow stop, no
damage to the wheel,
B Pc2= 0.5*0.3*0.4=0.06
PB1 = 0.3 C Car collided with the centre
A C3 Pc3 = 0.6 divider, damage to the car
and the divider
PA2 = 0.5 Pc3=0.5*0.3*0.6=0.09
C Car ran off the road, damage
C4 Pc4 = 0.2
B to the car, driver injured
Pc4=0.5*0.7*0.2=0.07
PB2 = 0.7 C
C5 Pc5 = 0.8 Collision with another vehicle,
A no property damage or injury
damage to both, both drivers
B property damage, no injury
C damage to the car only, no other property damage injured
Pc5=0.5*0.7*0.8=0.28

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Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is a bottom-up, qualitative dependability analysis
method, which is particularly suited to the study of material, component and equipment
failures and their effects on the next higher functional system level. Iterations of this step
(identification of single Failure modes and the evaluation of their effects on the next higher
system level) result in the eventual identification of all the system single failure modes. FMEA
lends itself to the analysis of systems of different technologies (electrical, mechanical,
hydraulic, software, etc.) with simple functional structures. FMECA extends the FMEA to
include criticality analysis by quantifying failure effects in terms of probability of occurrence
and the severity of any effects. The severity of effects is assessed by reference to a specified
scale.

FMEAs or FMECAs are generally done where a level of risk is anticipated in a program early
in product or process development. Factors that may be considered are new technology, new
processes, new designs, or changes in the environment, loads, or regulations. FMEAs or
FMECAs can be done on components or systems that make up products, processes, or
manufacturing equipment. They can also be done on software systems.

The FMEA or FMECA, analysis generally follows the following steps:

• Identification of how the component of system should perform;
• Identification of potential failure modes, effects, and causes;
• Identification of risk related to failure modes and effects;
• Identification of recommended actions to eliminate or reduce the risk;
• Follow-up actions to close out the recommended actions.

Benefits include:
• Identifies systematically the cause and effect relationships.
• Gives an initial indication of those failure modes that are likely to be critical,
especially single failures that may propagate.
• Identifies outcomes arising from specific causes or initiating events that are believed to
be important.
• Provides a framework for identification of measures to mitigate risk.
• Useful in the preliminary analysis of new or untried systems or processes.

Limitations include:
• The output data may be large even for relatively simple systems.
• May become complicated and unmanageable unless there is a fairly direct (or "single-
chain") relationship between cause and effect may not easily deal with time sequences,
restoration processes, environmental conditions, maintenance aspects, etc.
• Prioritising mode criticality is complicated by competing factors involved

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