PROBLEMS

1. An equipment obeying exponential law of reliability has 97 percent

probability of survival in first 100 hours of operation. What is the
probability of its survival in:

(a) First 200 hours operation?

(b) Post 100 hours of operation provided it has survived for the 900
hours of the 1000 hours of useful life?

2. An engine shaft has a failure rate of 0.5 x 10-7 /hr . The shield used
with the shaft has a failure rate of 2.5x10- 7 Ihr. If a given company
has 5000 engines with these shafts and shields and each engine
operates for 350 days of useful life. Estimate the number of shafts
and shields that must be replaced annually.

3. The reliability R(t) of an item is assumed to be exponentially

decreasing function :

R(t) = exp (-t/10- 4 days)

What is the probability that the item will still be functioning without
failure at t = 300 days, given that the unit functioned without failure
at t = 100 days ?

4. It is required to produce a device having a reliability of at least 95 %

over a period of 500 hr. Estimate the maximum permissible failure
rate and minimum MTBF.

5. A home computer manufacturer determines that his machine has a

335
336 Reliability Engineering

constant failure rate of A. = 0.4/year in normal use. For how long

should the warranty be set if no more than 5 % of the computers are
to be returned to the manufacturer for repair?

6. A device has a constant failure rate of 0.71 year.

(a) What is the probability that the device will fail during the second
year of operation?
(b) If upon failure the device is immediately replaced, what is the
probability that there will be more than one failure in 3 years of
operation?

7. Somebody wants to take a 1000 km trip by car. The car has a

constant failure rate of A. = 10- 4 per kilometer travelled. What is the
probability that the destination is reached without the car breaking
down?

8. The weather radar system of an airliner has an MTTF of 1140 hours.

Assuming that the failure rate is constant, solve the following
problems:

(a) What is the probability of failure during a 4-hour flight?

(b) What is the maximum duration of a flight such that the
reliability may not drop below 0.99?

9. The failure rate for a certain type of component is A.(t) = A.ot where
1..0 > > 0 and is constant. Find its reliability, mortality and MTBF.

10. Two types of components with identical electrical characteristics

have different failure rates. The failure rate of component A is 1 %1
1000 hrs. and that of B is 10-6t, where t is in hours. Which
component is more reliable for an operating time of (i) 100 hrs (ii)
100 mts ?

11 . An engineer approximates the reliability of a cutting assembly by

R(t) = (1-t/1o)2 ,0~t<1o

o , t ~ 10
(a) Determine the failure rate.
(b) Does the failure rate increase or decrease with time?
(c) Determine the MTTF.

12. Define failure rate and express it in terms of reliability. The reliability
expression for a system is given as:
Problems 337

R(t) = exp[- (a + bt)t1

Determine the expression for A(t).

13. The PDF for the time to failure of an appliance is

32
f(t) = , t > 0,
(t + 4)3

where t is in years.

(a) Find the reliability R(t),

(b) Find the failure rate A(t),
(c) Find the MTTF.

14. A sample of 150 electronic components is subjected to testing

(presumably in useful life). Three failures are found at the end of 400
hours, four more at the end of 800 hours, two more at the end of
1200 hours, four more at the end of 1800 hours and no further
failures are found when the test is terminated at 2500 hours.

(a) Estimate the MTBF if failed components are replaced when

found.
(b) Estimate MTBF if no replacements are made.

15. For the reliability analysis, 300 diodes were placed for a life test.
After 1500 hr, 16 diodes had failed and test was stopped. The times
at which failures occurred are: 115, 120, 205, 370, 459, 607, 714,
840, 990, 1160, 1188, 1300, 1380, 1414, 1449 and 1497 hrs.
Determine the failure rate of the diodes.

1 6. A sample of 200 resistors is subjected to testing (presumably in the

useful life period ). Five failures are found at the end of 500 hours.
Six more at the end of 800 hours, 2 more at the end of 1200 hours,
6 more at the end of 1800 hours and no further failures are found
when the test is terminated at the end of 2400 hours.

(a) Estimate the MTBF if failed resistors are replaced when found.
(b) Estimate the MTBF if no replacements are made.

17. Twenty small generators were put under test for a period of 1500
hours. One generator failed at 400 hours and was replaced by new
one. A second failed at 500 hours and was also replaced. A third and
fourth failed at 550 and 600 hours, respectively, and were removed
338 Reliability Engineering

from testing, but were not replaced. A fifth malfunctioned at 700

hours was immediately repaired, and was put back into test. A sixth
malfunctioned at 800 hours but was kept in test. Later analysis
showed this failure was due to governor malfunction. Estimate the
failure rate of the generators.

18. Ten units are placed on life test, and the failure times are 9, 19, 27,
35, 40, 46, 50, 55, 56, 60 hr. Plot f(t), A(t), Q(t) and R(t).

19. In the life-testing of 100 specimens of a particular device, the

number of failures during each time interval of twenty hours is
shown in Table below. Estimate the MTTF for these specimens.

TABLE
Time Interval Hours Number of failures during the

T
__
~ 1000
_-_
. ..._-------.... ......- 1-._ .. _.._.._ . _..interval
-..-._.-..- ..- ...._._..-
0
1000 < T ~ 1020 25

_._ __ __
1020 < T ~ 1040 40
1040 < T 1060
1-._-----_._._---
~ ... _----_ ...... 20 . . ._-
1060 < T ~ 1080 10
1080 < T ~ 11 00 5

20. In a well-shuffled deck of 52 playing cards, what is the probability

that the top card is:

(a) A diamond (b) a black card, and (c) a nine?

21 . The PDF of the lifetime of an appliance is given by

f(t) = 0.25t e-0 .5t , t ~ 0,

where t is in years.

(a) What is the probability of failure during the first year?

(b) What is the probability of the appliance's lasting at least 5 years?
(c) If no more than 5% of the appliances are to require warranty
services, what is the maximum number of months for which the
appliance can be warranted?

22. A device is put into service on a Monday and operates seven days
each week. Each day there is a 10% chance that the device will
break down. (This includes the first day of operation). The
maintenance crew is not available on weekends, and so the manager
Problems 339

hopes that the first breakdown does not occur on a weekend. What
is the probability that the first breakdown will occur on a weekend?

23. A man and his wife appear for an interview for two posts. The
probability of husband's selection is 1/7 and that of the wife's
selection is 1/5. What is the probability that only one of them will be
selected?

24. A president is to be elected from the membership of a political

organization which has 100 members. If the ratio of male to female
is 4: 1 and half of both men and women are married, what is the
probability that

(a) the president is a man,

(b) the president is a married woman, and
(c) the president is a married man or married woman?

25. Consider the following if statement in a program:

if B then s1 else s2

The random experiment consists of 'observing' two successive

executions of the if statement. The sample space consists of four
possible outcomes:

Assume the following probability assignment:

Determine the probability of the following events:

(a) At least one execution of the statement s1.

(b) Statement s2 is executed the first time.

26. A company producing electric light bulbs has an annual inspected

output of 7.8 million bulbs and its inspection department is assessed
as having a reliability of 0.9. A particular customer buys a batch of
4500 light bulbs from this company in which he finds that 9 are
faulty. On the basis of these data, what is the estimate of the
average number of bulbs which the company rejects each year in the
inspection department?

27. A binary communication channel carries data as one of two types of

340 Reliability Engineering

signals, i.e. ones or zeros. A transmitted zero is sometimes received

as a one and a transmitted one is sometimes received as a zero
because of noise. For a given channel, assume a probability of 0.94
that a received zero is a transmitted zero and a probability of 0.91
that a received one is a transmitted one. Further assume a probability
of 0.45 of transmitting a zero. If a single signal is sent, determine:

(a) Probability that one is received,

(b) Probability that a zero is received,
(c) Probability that a one was transmitted if a one was received.

28. A cinema house gets electric power from a generator run by diesel
engine. On any day, the probability that the generator is down (event
A) is 0.025 and the probability that the diesel engine is down (event
B) is 0.04. What is the probability that the cinema house will have
power on any given day? Assume that occurrence of event A and
event B are independent of each other.

29. A has one share in a lottery in which there is one prize and two
blanks ; B has three shares in a lottery in which there are three
prizes and 6 blanks; compare the probability of A's success to that
of B's success.

30. Four persons are chosen at random from a group containing 3 men,
2 women and 4 children. Calculate the chances that exactly two of
them will be children.

31 . A manufacturing concern specializing in high-pressure relief valves

subjects every valve to a particular acceptance test before certifying
it as fit for use. Over a period of time, it is observed that 95% of all
valves manufactured pass the test. However, the acceptance test
adopted is found to be only 98% reliable. Consequently, a valve
certified as fit for use has a probability of 0.02 of being faulty. What
is the probability that a satisfactory valve will pass the test?

32. A certain firm has plants A, Band C producing respectively, 35%,

15% and 50% of the total output. The probabilities of a non
defective product are 0.75, 0.95, and 0.85 respectively. A customer
receives a defective product. What is the probability that it came
from plant C ?

33. In a survival test involving mechanical valves, 1000 valves are

tested. On the average, 822 valves survive 400 cycles of operation,
and out of these, 411 valves survive 700 cycles of operation. What
is the probability of a valve surviving 400 cycles as well as 700
Problems 341

cycles of operation? What is the probability that a valve will survive

700 cycles of operation if it has already survived 400 cycles of
operation?

34. A given lot of small devices is 98 percent good and 2 percent

defective. To be certain of using a good device, each device is tested
before installation. The tester itself is not totally reliable since it has
the following conditional probabilities:

P(says good/actually good) = 0.95

P(says bad/actually bad) = 0.95
A device is tested with the tester indicating the device is bad. What
is the probability the device is actually bad?

35. An anti-aircraft gun can take a minimum of four shots at an enemy

plane moving away from it. The probability of hitting the plane at
first, second, third, and fourth shots are 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, and 0.1
respectively. What is the probability that the gun hits the plane?

36. A device has a random failure rate of 20 failures/1 0 5 hour for an

operating period of 300 hours, what is the probability of

(a) No failure
(b) One failure
(c) Two failures
(d) Two failures or less
(e) More than two failures.

37. Four identical electronic units are connected in parallel. Each has a
reliability of 0.9. Estimate the probability of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 of
these units remaining operative.

38. It is found that the number of system breakdowns occurring in a

given length of time follows a Poisson distribution with a mean
value of a 2 break-downs. What are the probabilities, in the same
length of the time, of the system having

(a) no break-down
(b) 1 break-down
(c) 2 break-downs
(d) 10 break-downs
(e) Less then 3 break-downs
(f) three or more than 3 break-downs.
342 Reliability Engineering

39. An illuminated mimic diagram in a plant control room has 150

nominally identical bulbs which are required to be permanently
illuminated. If the probability of anyone bulb being out at anyone
time is 0.01, what is the probability of

(a) at least 5 bulbs being out,

(b) not more than 3 bulbs being out,
(c) exactly 4 bulbs being out?

40. Verify that the function defined by f(t) = 0.1 e-· 25t + 0.06e- 0.1 t
for all number t>O, with f(t) = 0 for t< 0, is a density function and
find the expected value of a random variable having such a density
function.

41. The time (measured in years), X, required to complete a software

project has a pdf of the form:

f x(x) = kx 2 (1-x3 ), 0~x~1

o otherwise

Determine the probability that the project will be completed in less

than 4 months.

42. A device has a lifetime which is known to be an exponential random

variable X with E(X) = 10 years. Find the value of to for which the
probability is exactly 1/2 that the device lasts at least to years; that
is, P(X>to ) = 1/2.

43. A simple resistive element of fixed value 10 ohms is known to obey

Ohm's law. The current flowing through this element is randomly
distributed according to a rectangular distribution which has lower
and upper limits of 4 A and 6 A respectively. What is the probability
that the voltage developed across the element meets the requirement
of being at least 45V?

44. A room is lit by five nominally identical lamps. All lamps are switched
on together and left switched on. It is known that the times to lamp
failures after they have been switched on is rectangularly distributed
between a lower limit of 8000 hr and an upper limit of 12,000 hr.
What is the mean time to the room being in darkness? How would
this mean time be affected if the number of lamps was increased to a
total of 157

45. A delicate electronic clock, which is circular in shape, is to be housed

in a box with a diametrical clearance of not less than 2.0 mm and
Problems 343

not greater than 7.0 mm. This clearance is provided for cooling
purposes. The radius of the clock is a random variable following a
normal probability law with a mean of 20.0 cm and a coefficient of
variation of 1 %. The manufacturing process adopted to produce the
housing results in making the inner radius of the box also a random
variable following a normal probability law with a mean of 20.2 cm
and a coefficient of variation of 2 %. Evaluate the probability that the
specified clearance will be met for a clock and its housing.

46. An electronic amplifier, when normally functioning, is found to have

random variations in power output from all causes which follow a
rectangular distribution between the limits of 45 mW and 55 mW. In
addition, the amplifier has a probability at any time of 10-2 of being
in the catastrophic or completely unavailable state where the power
output is effectively zero. What is the reliability of the amplifier in
meeting a requirement for the power output to be greater than 47
mW?

47. A control system has a power output measured in watts, W, which

as a result of variations in the elements within the system, is
randomly distributed with respect to time according to the p.d.f.
fw(W) where:

fw(W) = 0 for 0 :s; W:s; 42.5

fw(W) = 0.032W - 1.36 for 42.5 :s; W :s; 45
fw(W) = 0.08 for 45:S; W:S; 55
fw(W) = 1.84 - 0.032W for 55:S; W:S; 57.5
fw(W) = 0 for 57.5 :s; W < 00.

Draw the shape of this p.d.f. and calculate the reliability of the
control system if the requirement for the power output at a particular
time is (a) that it should be between 45 Wand 57 W, (b) that it
should be between 43 Wand 57 Wand (c) that it should be less
than 55 W.

48. A given component has an MTBF of 106 hr, what is the reliability for
an operating period of 10 hr for 5 such components in series ?

49. A regulated power supply consists of a step down transformer,

rectifier, filter and a regulator. The constant failure rates of these
components are :

Transformer 1.56% failures/1 000 hours

Rectifier 2.00% failures/1000 hours
Filter 1 .70% failures/1000 hours
344 Reliability Engineering

Regulator 1 .40% failures/1000 hours

Determine the reliability of this supply if it is required to operate for

(1) 500 hours (2) 1000 hours (3) 1500 hours. Comment on reliability
vs hours of operation . What is the failure rate of total supply unit ?

50. A manufacturer of 16K byte memory boards finds that the reliability
of the manufactured boards is 0.9S. Assume that the defects are
independent.

(a) What is the probability of a single byte of memory being

defective?
(b) If no changes are made in design or manufacture, what reliability
may be expected from 12SK byte boards?

51 . An electronic amplifier is made up of 50 resistors, 20 capacitors, 10

transistors, 10 diodes and 10 variable resistors. Every component
must be in the working state for the amplifier to be working. Each
component has times to failure which follow an exponential
distribution with mean values of 5x10 6 hr, 2x10 6 hr, 106 hr, 107 hr
and 5x10 5 hr for resistors, capacitors, transistors, diodes and
variable resistors respectively. What is:

(a) the mean time to failure of the amplifier and

(b) the probability that the amplifier has failed by a time of 100 hr?

52. A certain component has a failure rate of 4x10- S/hr in the on- state
and a failure rate of 4x10- 9 /hr in the off-state. On average, over the
life of this component, it is only 25% of the time in the on-state.
What is the effective failure rate of this component?

53. A measurement system consists of a sensor unit and an indicator

unit. Starting from time zero, the times to failure for each unit are
exponentially distributed. The mean time to failure for the sensor is
6000 hr and that for the indicator is 3000 hr. If either unit fails the
system remains in the failed state. What is:

(a) the mean time to system failure,

(b) the probability of the system being in the failed state after 1000
hr, and
(c) the probability of the system being in the successful state after
4000 hr?

54. A system is composed of 5 identical independent elements in

parallel. What should be the reliability of each element to achieve a
Problems 345

system reliability of 0.96 ?

55. Four capacitances of 25 J.LF each are connected in parallel to act as a

single capacitance of 100 J.LF required for the successful operation of
a unit. If the reliabilities of these capacitors are 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and
0.9 respectively, find the reliability of the unit.

56. A solid fuel booster engine has been test fired 2760 times. On 414
occasions the engine failed to ignite. If a projectile is fitted with
three identical and independent booster engines of this type, what is
the chance on launching of the projectile that,

(a) all three engines fail to ignite,

(b) at least one of the engines fails to ignite?

57. The reliability function for a relay is R(t) = exp(- A.K) where K is the
number of cycles and A. = 10-4 /cycle. A logic circuit uses 10 relays.
The specific logic circuit used is unknown. What range should K have
for the system reliability to be 0.95 ?

58. A 10kW power supply system is to be designed. The following

alternatives are available:

1. One single generator of 10kW rating with a failure rate of 0.20

per 1000hr,
2. two generators each rated for 10kW and with a failure rate of
0.25 per 1000 hr, and
3. three generators each rated for 5kW and with a failure rate of
0.20 per 1000 hr.

Which of the alternatives would you select ? Why ? Assume that the
redundant units are statistically independent.

59. Two circuit breakers of the same design each have a failure-to- open-
on-demand probability of 0.02. The breakers are placed in series so
that both must fail to open in order for the circuit breaker system to
fail.

What is the probability of system failure

(a) If the failures are independent, and

(b) If the probability of a second failure is 0.1, given the failure of

the first?
346 Reliability Engineering

(c) In part (a) what is the probability of one or more breaker failures
on demand?

(d) In part (b) what is the probability of one or more failures on

demand?

60. A microprocessor system consists of the following units:

Unit Number Failure rate

Processor 1 A.p
Main Memory Unit 3 A.MM
Disk Controller 1 A.flC
Disk Drive 4 A.nn
Video Terminal 1 A.VT

each with a constant failure rate. The system configuration is shown

in Fig. For the system to operate, the processor, terminal and disk
controller must function together with two of the memory units and
three of the disk drives. Obtain an expression for the reliability of the
system and the system MTBF.

Disk ConlroDer

MainMemmy

Disk Drives

61. An equipment consists of 100 tubes. Twenty of these are connected

functionally in series (branch A). This branch A is in turn connected
in series to a parallel combination of branches Band C. The branch B
and C contain 20 and 60 tubes respectively, connected functionally
in series. The reliability of each tube in branch A, Band C
respectively is Pa = 0.95, Pb = 0.93, and Pc = 0.96. Calculate the
overall reliability of the equipment.

62. Three generators, whose data is given below, are connected in

parallel. Determine the reliability of the system if the required load is
100kW.
Problems 347

Generator Capacity ! Reliability

1 50kW j 0.98
3
__
""":.... ... ...- ...
2 ..10gkW .---1-9.:97 _ ....
50kW 10.99

63. A critical measuring instrument consists of two sub-systems

connected in series. Sub-systems A and B have reliabilities 0.90 and
0.92, respectively, for a certain operating time. It is necessary that
the reliability of the instrument be raised to a minimum value of
0.917 by using parallel sub-systems of A alone. Determine how
many units of A should be used with one B to get a minimum
reliability value of 0.98. What is the actual reliability value obtained?

64. A PC/XT has the following units with their respective failure rates in
(%/1000 hrs.) as indicated:

i CPU(incl. RAM and interfaces) 1.0

ii Co-processor 2.0
iii Key Board 0.8
iv VDU 2.5
v Hard Disc 3.0
vi Floppy Drive 1 1.5
vii Floppy Drive 2 1.5
viii Printer 3.5

(a) Determine the reliability of each unit for 2,000 hrs. of operation.

(b) Determine the reliability of the system and MTBF if only one
floppy drive is sufficient.

(c) How is the reliability of the system and MTBF modified if we

consider that the Co-processor is used only 40% of the time, and
printer is used only 20% of the time.

65. The circuit in the following picture shows a battery, a light, and two
switches for redundancy. The two switches are operated by different
people, and for each person there is a probability of 0.9 that the
person will remember to turn on the switch. The battery and the light
have reliability 0.99. Assuming that the battery, the light, and the
two people all function independently, what is the probability that the
light will actually turn on?
348 Reliability Engineering

Light

Switch 2
66. A computer system has three units as shown in Fig. Their reliabilities
are as follows:

Card reader = 0.89

Central processing unit(CPU) = 0.98
Line printer = 0.85

I Card Reader H,-__cp_V_-..JH Line Printer

Determine the system reliability. If you want the system reliability to

be not less than 0.95, what steps would you take? Draw the
improved system diagram and calculate its actual reliability.

67. A system consists of three components in series, each with a

reliability of 0.96. A second set of three components is purchased
and a redundant system is built. What is the reliability of the
redundant system (a) with high-level redundancy, (b) with low-level
redundancy?

68. Given the following component reliabilities, calculate the reliability of

the two systems.

(a)

(b)
Problems 349

69. Four elements of a system each have a constant probability of 0.1 of

being in the failed state at any time. What is the system probability
of being in the failed state if the elements are so connected that
system successes is achieved when :

(a) any 1 or more of the 4 elements are successful,

(b) any 2 or more of the 4 elements are successful,
(c) any 3 or more of the 4 elements are successful, and
(d) only all 4 elements are successful?

70. An electronic equipment comprises five active, independent, and

identical units. The equipment will only operate successfully if at
least three of the units are operating normally. Each unit has a
constant failure rate, A.=0.004 failure/hr. Calculate the system mean
time to failure.

71 . A 1O-elements system is constructed of independent identical

components so that 5 out of the 1O-elements are necessary for
system success. If the system reliability R must be 0.99, how good
must the components be ?

72. Assume a designer has the freedom to use as many elements in

parallel as he wishes. If an element has a reliability of 0.6 over a
fixed time interval, determine the minimum number of parallel
elements he must use to achieve a unit reliability of at least 0.95 for
the following two cases:

(a) Successful unit operation will result if at least one element

operates.
(b) If at least two parallel elements must operate.

73. If the level of stress changes during a mission, then the failure rate
also changes. At take off, for example, an aircraft engine has to
generate a greater torque to get the higher engine thrust required.
At cruising altitude and speed, torque requirements are reduced.
Assume the stress profile of an aircraft flight is as shown:

(a) Find an expression for reliability of a single engine for one flight.

(b) Assume a four engine aircraft. If all four engines are required for
takeoff and climb, but only two out of four are required for
completing the flight, determine the entire system reliability for
one flight.
350 Reliability Engineering

Landing

Climb Cruise Descent

Time
o ts

74. A pipeline carrying fluid has two valves as shown below. Draw the
reliability logic diagram if

Valve A Valve B

Flow -----~f----
(a) both of them are normally closed and expected to open when
required to permit flow, and
(b) both of them are normally open and expected to close to block
the flow.

75. In an electronic circuit a diode function is necessary. To increase the

reliability of this diode function one wants to apply active
redundancy. One can afford, however, no more than three diodes.
The diodes used may exhibit both open failures and short-circuit
failures, the associated probabilities are:

-Open failure Po = 0.02,

-Short circuit failure Ps = 0.01
----t>!-- 1
Problems 351

The diodes fail stochastically independent. Indicate for which of the

circuits below the reliability is maximal and motivate your answer.

76. An electronic system can fail in two mutually exclusive failure

modes, i.e., type I (open mode) and type II (short mode). The open
and short modes constant failure rates are 1..1 = 0.002 and 1..2 =
0.004 failuresl hour, respectively. Calculate the value of the
following items for a 100 hr mission:

1. System reliability
2. Open mode failure probability
3. Short mode failure probability

77. The failure probabilities of a diode subject to double failure are

related as follows:

= 0.2
= 0.3

What type of redundancy would you apply in order to increase the

reliability ? What is the maximum reliability possible and number of
diodes required? If the ratio Qo/Qs = 1.5, how would it affect the
redundancy design ? Determine the maximum system reliability and
the number of diodes required.

78. The identical components of the system below have fail-to-danger

probabilities of Pd = 10-2 and fail-safe probabilities of Ps = 10- 1 .

(a) What is the system fail-to-danger probability?

(b) What is the system fail-safe probability?

79. A small nuclear research reactor has three absorber rods which are
suspended above the reactor and are designed to drop into the
reactor core and shut the reactor down in the event of any untoward
incident. The three rods are designated A, Band C and it has been
found that the probability of each of these rods failing to drop on
demand is Pa = 0.005, Pb = 0.01 and Pc =0.001. If it is known
that any two or more of three rods entering the reactor core will
352 Reliability Engineering

safely shut the reactor down, what is the probability of failing to shut
the reactor down when called upon to do so?

80. A system has MTBF of 200 hrs. Calculate the 100 hr. reliability of a
system in which one such unit is operative and two identical units
are standing by.

81 . Two components each with an MTBF of 1000 hours are connected

in (1) active (2) standby redundancy. Determine the overall system
MTBF.

82. The failure rate of a device is constant equal to 0.06x10-3 per hr.
How many standby devices are required to achieve a reliability of
more than 0.985 for an operating period of 10,000 hrs? What is the
MTTF of the resulting system ?

83. A d.c. generator has a failure rate of 0.0002 failures/hour. In case of

its failure, a battery is used as a standby whose failure rate is 0.001
failure /hour when in operation. Find the reliability and MTBF for this
system for a mission time of 10 hours assuming perfect sensing and
switching. If the sensing and switching device has a 99 percent
reliability for a switching function, how are the results modified?

84. Calculate the reliability of 10 hrs operating period of a parallel system

with two units, each having a failure rate of 0.01 failures/hour. Do
likewise for a two unit standby system using the same units and
assuming 100 percent reliability of sensing, switching and idling.
Compare the two on the basis of reliability and MTBF.

85. The power supply to the operating unit of a hospital is provided by a

generator whose failure rate follows an exponential distribution law
with parameter 1.1 = 0.005 per hour. A standby battery unit is
coupled through a decision switch which has a reliability rd = 0.90.
Calculate the reliability of the power supply system for a mission
time of 10 hours if the battery failure rate follows a distribution law
with parameter 1.2 = 0.001 per hour.

86. For the diagram shown in figure, determine the reliability expression,
if each branch has identical probability of success of 0.80.
Problems 353

87. The graph shown in fig represents a four-station communication

network. The four nodes represent the four stations and the six
branches represent two way communication links between the pair
of stations. Find all minimal tie-sets for transmission between a and b
and derive an expression for reliability of communication between
these nodes.

88. Two towns are connected by a network of communication channels.

The probability of a channel's failure-free operation is A, and channel
failures are independent. Minimal level of communication between
towns can be guaranteed provided at least one path containing
properly functioning channels exists. Given the network below,
determine the probability that the two towns will be able to
communicate. Here -***- denotes a communication channel.

Town~··
.~ • • -,-..~
••• I Town 2
D
• ______ • .J L•• ---.J

A network or communication channels.

89. Six computer systems are interconnected by means of the network

below. Each connecting line of the network can be used in both
directions and has an independent failure probability Po = O. 1 .
Calculate the probability that a successful information exchange can
occur between the computers 1 and 4.

2 F 4 G 6

90. An information processing station A can receive information from

four transmission stations T1, T2, T3 and T4. The four transmission
stations are connected by two-way links as shown in Fig. What is
354 Reliability Engineering

the probability that R will fail to receive information from T1 if the

probability of failure of transmitting links are identical and equal to q.

1'2 T3

Tl T4

91. A five component system is connected as shown in fig. Derive an

expression for system reliability using Baye's theorem. If all the
components are identical and independent with a reliability of 0.8,
determine the system reliability.

92. A vibration monitoring system consists of six sub-systems, all

connected in series. The predicted reliabilities as obtained from an
analysis are R1 = 0.993, R2 = 0.996, R3 = 0.998, R4 =0.997,
R5=0.987, and R6=0.989. Calculate the system reliability. If it is
desired to increase the reliability by 3.33%, determine the percentage
by which the reliability of each sub-system should be increased.
Assume an exponential model for each sub-system.

93. Four units are connected in series, with reliabilities R1 =0.85,

R2 =0.9, R3 =0.8 and R4 =0.95. Calculate the system reliability. If
the reliability is to be increased to a value of 0.65, how should this
be apportioned among the four units according to the minimum effort
method?
Problems 355

94. A system having three serial units is to be designed to have an

overall reliability of 0.95. The complexity of third serial unit is
expected to be twice as much as that of the second unit and
complexity of the second unit is expected to be three times as high
as that of the first unit. While first and third units are to operate all
the time, second unit is to operate only for 50% of the total time.
Allocate unit reliabilities to three units.

95. Three units of a system have predicted reliabilities 0.75, 0.85 and
0.95 respectively. It is desired to allocate the reliabilities such that
the system reliability is not less than 0.75. Obtain the necessary
solution by

(a) Basic Method

(b) Minimum Effort Method

If the cost of a unit with reliability r is ktan 2 (1tr/2), calculate the %

age increase in cost for both the solutions.

96. Devise Hamming code consisting of data digits and check digits to
encode the 5-bit data word 10101. Show how one error can be
detected and corrected.

97. A message coded in Hamming Code is transmitted through a noisy

channel.

The received message is

1011001 0111001 0011011 1110110

Decode the message assuming that at most a single error can occur
in a word.

98. Consider a system having 5 components in series whose data are:

Component No. Reliability Cost Weight

1 0.75 35 77
2 0.91 75 22
3 0.98 58 63
4 0.78 39 52
5 0.95 90 18

Find the optimum allocation of redundancies for maximizing system

reliability if Cs <500 and Ws <400.
356 Reliability Engineering

99. Consider a system having 5 components in series whose data are:

·.·.·~.Q!!ip.Q.Q~·rii·.·: .·.·.~j.·:::::::.·.·.·.·T:~i.·:::.·.·.·::.· ·:.Wi·.·:::::::r.·S1.i·.·:.·.·.·.·.·::.

1 0.785 i 5.2 77.9 i 34.9
2 0.916 1 75.1 22.2 ~ 28.6
3
.................................. ····0.986 ~ 58.5
..············ .. t··· ..· 63.3 ~ 87.3
ao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

n
4 ...............................
0.755 i 36.1 52.7 45.9 .
ti ................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 0.949 ~ 90.8 8.0 i 58.6

Find the optimum allocation of redundancies for maximizing system

reliability if
Cs <500, Ws < 589.6 and Vs < 686.2

100. Determine the optimum number of redundancies to maximise

reliability in the case of a system having 6 components with the
following details:

.~2!!).P...<?D.~~.L ..~_~l~~~!lity.J..g.Q.~!!..!..._.......Y.Y.~lQ.~!!...!5.g.. J
...1..._...................._ ..Q.:~.Q..-....-...I.J.9.-.........--..- ..~.-....-.....-.-..-.l
2 0.90 i 20 3 i
3 0 . 8 5 ! 20 4

Component No.4 is digital in nature. Component No.3 can permit the

use of standby redundancy only but not parallel redundancy.
Component 1 and 2 cannot be procured more than a total of 2 units
each.

The total system cost should not exceed 200 Dollars and total
system weight should not exceed 60 Kg.

101. An electrical supply system is subject to failure which causes loss of

supply to the consumer. The mean time between such failures is
known to be 398 hr and the meantime to repair the failures and
restore the supply is known to be 2 hr. What is the average value of
the availability of the supply to the consumer over a long period of
time?

102. An engine is to be designed to have a minimum reliability of 0.7 and

a minimum availability of 0.95 over a period of 1000 hrs. Determine
the mean repair time and the frequency of failures of the engine.
Problems 357

103. A computer has an MTTF = 34 hr and an MTTR = 2.5 hr.

(a) What is the availability?

(b) If the MTTR is reduced to 1.5 hr, what MTTF can be tolerated
without decreasing the availability of the computer?

104. For a computer unit, a suitable air-conditioning system has to be

designed. It should have a minimum reliability value of 0.95 for an
operation of 800 hours. The minimum availability value over the
same period of time is required to be 0.98. Assuming constant
hazards for failure and repair, estimate the time to failure and the
mean repair time.

105. If a transmitter is to be designed to have a reliability greater than

0.90 over 1000 hr and a minimum availability of 0.99 over that
period, determine the values of MTTF and MITR.

106. A large office block has a fire detection and alarm system which is
subject to a mean constant failure-rate of two failures per year (1
year = 8760 hr) and each failure that occurs takes, on average, 4 hr
to detect and repair. The system is also subject to a quarterly routine
inspection and test on which occasions it is out of action for a fixed
time of 1 hr. If the expected probability of fire occurrence in the
building over a period of time is 0.073, what is the probability of an
undetected fire by the alarm system over the same period of time?

107. In a workshop a minimum of two lathes are required to operate

continuously to meet the demand. The ratio of the repair rate to the
failure rate of each lathe is 4. If the workshop has three identical
lathes, determine the probability that at least two of them are
available in the long run.

108. You are given a system with n components. The MTBF for each
component is 100 hrs. and the MTTR is 5 hrs. Each component has
its own repair facility. Find the limiting availability of the system
when:

(1) All components are required for the system to function.

(2) At least one component is required for the system to function.

109. A two component parallel system uses both identical components

each with A. = 10- 5 /hr and .... = 10- 2 /hr. Calculate the %age increase
in mean time to failure with the use of repair facilities if the system
uses:
358 Reliability Engineering

(a) Active Parallel Redundancy

(b) Standby Redundancy.

110. Three generators each of 20KW have different values of availability

figures as supplied by different manufactures. The availability values
are 0.96,0.98 and 0.92 respectively. Determine the overall system
availability if the required load is 40 KW.

111. A system consists of two units in active redundancy. The units have
a constant failure rate A. of 10-3 per hour and fail stochastically
independent.

(a) How large is the MTTFF if no corrective maintenance at unit level

is performed?
(b) How large will the MTTFF be if there are repairs allowed at the
unit level? The repair rate I! is 10- 1 per hour.
(c) What is the addressing frequency of the repair channel in case(b)
if it may be assumed that A. < < I! ?
(d) The repair costs of a unit are $500 per event. However, if the
system goes down the costs, mainly because of the loss of
production, are $5,000 per event. Determine, based on the
outcome of (a), (b) and (c) whether it is economically sound to
perform corrective maintenance at the unit level.

112. The following three units are in operation in parallel in the reliability
sense.

,........G.......:............g.:9.9.~ .............:. ................9.:92................;

If the system is operating as a one-out-of-three parallel system,
determine

1. System availability,
2. Frequency of system failure,
3. Mean down- time, and
4. Mean up- time.

113. In testing certain systems whose operating time upto failure was
normally distributed, we obtain ten realisations of the operating time
upto failure (in hours): 115, 75, 80, 150, 75, 100, 120, 95, 70,
100. Find the confidence bounds for the mean of the operating time
upto failure with a level of confidence of 95%.
Problems 359

114. Twenty identical items were tested for 200 hr. Nine of the total
items failed during the test period. Their failure times are specified in
table below. The failed items were never replaced. Determine
whether the failure data represent the exponential distribution.

Failure number
Failure times (hr)

115. A relatively large number of nominally identical pumps are installed

on a process plant and it is known that the times to failure for the
pumps follow an exponential distribution. Over a 6-month period it is
found that 5 pump failures have occurred in a sample of 20 of the
pumps. If an estimate of the population mean failure-rate is made
from this sample, what are the symmetrical 90% confidence limits on
the estimate?

116. A non-replacement reliability test is carried out on 20 high- speed

pumps to estimate the value of the failure rate. In order to eliminate
wear failures, it is decided to terminate the test after half of the
pumps have failed. The times of the first 10 failures(in hours) are

33.7,36.9,46.8,56.6,62.1,63.6,78.4,79.0, 101.5, 110.2

(a) Estimate the MTTF.

(b) Determine the 90% confidence interval for the MTTF.

117. One wants to determine the MTTF of a new monolithic digital-to-

analog converter at 25 0 CI 77 0 FI 298K. For that purpose 60
converters are operated for 1000 hours at 1000 CI 212 0 FI 373K and
60 converters for 1000 hours at 85 0 CI 185 0 FI 358K.

At 1000C, the MTTF turned out to be 6.5x10 3 hours. At 85 0C this

was 2.4x104 hours. Assume that the failure process behaves as a
chemical process with a reaction rate:

o = 00 exp(-EA/kT)
What is the MTTF of this converter at 25 0 C?

118. Suppose that a sample of 20 units passes an acceptance test if no

more than 2 units fail. Suppose that the producer guarantees the
units for a failure probability of 0.05. The buyer considers 0.15 to be
the maximum acceptable failure probability.
360 Reliability Engineering

(a) What is the producer's risk?

(b) What is the buyer's risk?

119. The same data have been fit with both the basic and logarithmic
poisson models. The parameters obtained are:

Basic Logarithmic poisson

An = 20 failures/cpu hr An = 50 failures /cpu hr
Vn = 120 failures e = 0.025/ failures
Note that the logarithmic poisson usually has higher initial failure
intensity. At first, recall that this falls off more rapidly than the failure
intensity for the basic model, but finally it falls off more slowly. We
require to examine some consequences of this behavior.

First, determine the additional failures and additional execution time

required to reach a failure intensity objective of 10 failures /cpu hr,
using both models. Then repeat this for an objective of 1 failure /cpu
hr. Assume in both cases that you start from the initial failure
intensity.

120. A computing center has a reliability objective of 0.90 for an 8- hr

shift for its interactive service. The system requirement is simply that
service be provided, regardless of the response time involved. All
reliabilities are measured with respect to this shift. It has a dual
processor configuration fed by a front-end processor, as shown in fig
below. The front-end processor has a reliability of 0.99 and its
operating system, 0.95. The reliability of each mainframe processor
is 0.98. What must the reliability of the mainframe operating system
be to meet the overall reliability objective?

Computing Centre ConflgW"ation.

121. A program with 50,000 source instructions and a source to object

expansion ratio of 4 will be executed on a machine with an average
instruction execution rate of 333,333 instructions !cpu sec. On
similar projects, a fault exposure ratio of K = 1.67 xl0- 7 has been
experienced, along with a fault density of 6 faults per 1000 source
instructions. The fault reduction factor B = 1. Estimate the initial
Problems 361

failure intensity at the start of the system test.

122. The Soft Landing software service company has won a service
contract to provide recovery service for a patient control and billing
system. The service is provided to doctors in a region who own
personal computers. It has a failure intensity of 1 failure /1 00 cpu hr.
The average system runs 10 cpu hr /week and there are 600 doctors
to be serviced. The average service person can make 2 service calls
daily, including travel and allowing for enough spare personnel to
prevent excessive service backlogs from building up.

How many service personnel do we need ? Assuming a cost of

$200/call, what annual contract fee must we charge each doctor to
achieve 20 % profit on sales ?

123. A program has an initial failure intensity of 10 failures/ cpu hr. We

want to test and debug this program until a failure intensity of 1
failure/10 cpu hr is achieved. Assume the following resource usage
parameters.

Resource usage Per hr Per failure

Failure identification effort 3 person hr 2 person hr
Failure correction effort 0 6 person hr
Computer time 1.5 cpu hr 1 cpu hr

(a) What resources must be expended to achieve the reliability

improvement required ? Use the logarithmic Poisson execution
time model. Assume a failure intensity decay parameter of 0.05.
(b) If the failure intensity objective is cut to half, are the resources
required doubled?

124. A change to 2000 source instructions is being made in a program of

100,000 source instructions. The fault density of base program at
the start of the system test was 5 faults /1000 source instructions.
Assume that the fault reduction factor B = 1. The initial failure
intensity of the base program was 2 failures Icpu hr. It was released
with failure intensity of 6 failures 1100 cpu hr. Fixes of faults are not
made during the operational phase. What is the expected impact on
failure intensity of the operational program?

125. Which of the following systems you will recommend as economical

from reliability point of view (the system having least costl reliability
ratio) ? The reliability and cost per component in configuration A B
and C respectively are as below:
362 Reliability Engineering

(atleast 2 out of 4)

Pa = 0.90 Pb = 0.70 Pc = 0.60

Ca = $ 10001- Cb = $ 5001- Cc = $ 2001-

 ANSWERS TO ODD NUMBERED PROBLEMS

1. (a) 0.9409 (b) 0.97

3. 0.9802

5. 47 days

7. 0.905

9. R(t) =exp(-A.ot 2 /2), fIt) =A.ot eXP(-A.ot 2 /2), m = (1t/2A.o ) 1/2

2
11. (a) A.(t) = --------------- . I 0::;; t::;; to'
t o [1-(t/to )]

(b) The failure rate increases from 2/to at t = 0 to infinity at t = to'

(c) m=to/3

13. (a) R(t) = 16/(t + 4)2 (b) A.(t) = 2/(t + 4)

(c) m =4 years

15. 0.000682/ hr

17. 1.7762 x 10-4 /hr

19. 1046 hrs

21. (a) 0.0902 (b) 0.2873 (c) 8 months

23. 2/7

25. (a) 0.86 (b) 0.40

27. (a) 0.5275 (b) 0.4725 (c) 0.949

363
364 Reliability Engineering

29. 7: 16

31. 0.999

33. 0.411, 0.500

35. 0.6976

37. 0.0001, 0.0036, 0.0486, 0.2916, 0.6561

39. (a) 0.018 (b) 0.935 (e) 0.047

41. 53/729

43. 0.75

45. 0.216

47. (a) 0.896 (b) 0.992 (e) 0.900

49. 1..= 6.66 x 10- 5 Ihr, R = 0.9672, 0.9355, 0.9049

51. (a) 19,610 hrs (b) 0.0051

53. (a) 2000 hrs (b) 0.3935 (e) 0.1353

55. 0.3024

57. 51 < K <13,514

59. (a) 0.0004 (b) 0.002

(e) 0.0396 (d) 0.038

61. 0.10765

63. 3 A's, R = 0.9191

65. 0.9703

67. (a) 0.9867 (b) 0.9952

69. (a) 0.0001 (b) 0.0037

Answers to odd numbered problems 365

(c) 0.0523 (d) 0.3439

71. 0.885

73. (a) R = exp(-A.l tl) . exp[ -A.2(t2-tl)] . exp[ -A.3(t3-t2)]

. exp[ -A.4(t4-t3)] . exp[ -A.5(t5-t4)]

(b) R= exp(-4A.ltl) . exp[-4A.2(t2-tl)] [6R,2 (1-R,)2

+ 4R,3 (1-R') + 4R'4]

where, R' = exp[-A.3(t3-t2)] . exp[ -A.4(t4-t3)] . exp[ -A.5(t5-t4)]

75. Circuit in fig.6 is optimal.

77. Series configuration of 2 diodes and R = 0.886,

Parallel configuration of 2 diodes and R = 0.832.

79. 6.5 x 10-5

81. (i) 1500 hrs (ii) 2000 hrs

83. Reliability of 0.99999 and MTBF of 6000 hrs,

Reliability of 0.99997 and MTBF of 5990 hrs.

85. 0.9949

87. R= Pab + qab Pac Pbc + qab Pad Pbd qac + qab Pad Pbd Pac qbc

+ Pad Pcd Pbc qab qac qbd + Pac Pcd Pbd qab qad %c

89. 0.988

91. 0.94208

93. 0.881, 0.881, 0.881, 0.95

95. 0.8478,0.9109,0.9710; 196.898%;

0.8885, 0.8885, 0.95; 22.05%

366 Reliability Engineering

97. 9996

99. 3,2,2,3,1

101. /...= 1/398, A= 0.995

103. (a) 0.9315 (b) 20.4 hrs

105. 9491 hrs, 96 hrs

107. 0.896

109. (a) 3.33 x 104 % (b) 5 x 104 %

111. (a) 1500 hrs (b) 50,000 hrs

(e) 2 x 10-3 Ihr (d) $ 1.10 Ihr

113. 79.10 hr - 116.9 hr

115. 0.197 faults Iyr - 1.05 faults Iyr

117. 1.66 x 107 hrs

119. 60 failures and 4.16 CPU hr, 64 failures and 3.2 CPU hr;

114 failures and 18 CPU hr, 156 failures and 39.2 CPU hr

121. 0.3 failures ICPU hr

123. (a) XI = 778 per-hr, XF = 552 per-hr, XC = 389 CPU hr

(b) No, Somewhat less

125. System "C" is optimal.