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EEE 543 1
STATISTICAL RELIABILITY AND
ESTIMATION FOR COMPONENTS
SELECTION
EEE 543
EEE 543 2
Multiple Failure Mechanisms
• It’s seldom true that an item's failure is caused by a single failure
mechanism.
• Mostly, there will be more than one mechanism that causes the
failure of an item
• Most of the practical systems fail due to different failure
mechanisms
• Let 𝑓1 (𝑡) and 𝑓2 (𝑡) be the PDF of the system due to failure
mechanism 1 and 2 respectively.
• The PDF of the TTF of the system caused by either of the failure
mechanisms is
𝑓(𝑡) = 𝑓1 (𝑡)[1 − 𝐹2 (𝑡)] + 𝑓2 (𝑡)[1 − 𝐹1 (𝑡)]
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Multiple Failure Mechanisms
• Where 𝐹1 (𝑡) and 𝐹2 (𝑡) the are failure function for failure
mechanism 1 and 2 respectively.
• The Failure Function of the item under two different failure
mechanism is given by:
𝑡
𝐹(𝑡) = 𝑓1 (𝑡)[1 − 𝐹2 (𝑡)] + 𝑓2 (𝑡)[1 − 𝐹1 (𝑡)] 𝑑𝑥
0
EEE 543 4
Multiple Failure Mechanisms - Ex
• Failure of an item is caused by two different failure mechanisms
A and B. The time-to-failure distribution of the item due to
failure mechanism A can be represented by exponential
distribution with parameter λ𝐴 = 0.002 hours. The time-to-
failure distribution of the item due to failure mechanism B can be
represented by exponential distribution with parameter
λ𝐵 = 0.005 hours. Find the probability that the item will fail
before 500 hours of operation.
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Multiple Failure Mechanisms - Ex
𝑓𝐴 𝑡 = λ𝐴 𝑒 −λ𝐴 𝑡 ; 1 − 𝐹𝐴 𝑡 = 𝑒 −λ𝐴 𝑡
𝑓𝐵 𝑡 = λ𝐵 𝑒 −λ𝐵𝑡 ; 1 − 𝐹𝐵 𝑡 = 𝑒 −λ𝐵𝑡
𝑡
𝐹 𝑡 = 𝑓1 𝑡 1 − 𝐹2 𝑡 + 𝑓2 𝑡 1 − 𝐹1 𝑡 𝑑𝑥
0
= λ𝐴 𝑒 −(λ𝐴 +λ𝐵)𝑡 + λ𝐵 𝑒 −(λ𝐴+λ𝐵)𝑡
𝐹 𝑡 = 1 − 𝑒 −(λ𝐴+λ𝐵)𝑡
𝐹 500 = 1 − 𝑒 − 0.002+0.005 500 = 0.9698
• H/W – Find the reliability due to single failure mechanism
and combined reliability due to multiple failure mechanisms
and compare
EEE 543 6
Failure Rate
• Whenever the hazard function is constant, we call it the Failure
Rate.
• Failure Rate is a special case of hazard function (which is the
time dependent failure rate).
• Failure Rate is one of the most widely used contractual
reliability measures
• By definition, it is appropriate to use Failure Rate only when the
time-to-failure distribution is exponential.
• Also, Failure Rate can be used only for a non-repairable system
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EEE 543 7
Failure Rate
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒
𝐹𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒 =
𝐶𝑢𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒
• N.B
• Failure Rate represents the number of failures per unit time.
• If the failure rate is 𝜆, then the expected number of items that
fail in the interval 0 ≤ 𝑥 ≤ 𝑡is 𝜆𝑡.
EEE 543 8
Mean Time To Failure (MTTF)
• Expected value of a system's time to first failure.
• Used as a measure of reliability for non-repairable items such as
bulbs, microchips and many electronic circuits.
• Mathematically,
∞ ∞
𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹 = 𝑡 × 𝑓 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 = 𝑅 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
0 0
• MTTF can be considered as the area under the curve
represented by the reliability function, 𝑅 𝑡 between 0 and ∞
• If the item under consideration is repairable, then the expression
represents Mean Time To First Failure of the item
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EEE 543 9
Mean Time To Failure (MTTF)
EEE 543 10
Mean Time To Failure (MTTF)
• MTTF varies for different failure distributions
• For example let us assume that we have two items A and B with
same MTTF (e.g. 500 days). If the TTF of item A is exponential
is that of item B is normal then there will be a significant
variation in the behaviour of these items.
• The figure in slide 11shows the CDF of these two items up to
500 days.
• MTTF is the average life of a non-repairable system.
• For a repairable system, MTTF represents the average time
before the first failure.
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EEE 543 11
Mean Time To Failure (MTTF)
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Mean Residual Life
• It may be of interest to know the expected value of the remaining
life of the item before it fails from an arbitrary time 𝑡0 e.g. when
disposing off big equipment
• We denote this value as 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹(𝑡0 ),
• It represents the expected time to failure of an item aged 𝑡0
• . Mathematically,
∞
𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹 𝑡0 = 𝑡 − 𝑡0 𝑓(𝑡|𝑡0 ) 𝑑𝑡
𝑡0
Where
𝑓 𝑡 𝑡0 = (𝑡) × 𝑅(𝑡|𝑡0 )
the density of the conditional probability of failure at time 𝑡,
provided that the item has survived over time 𝑡0
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EEE 543 13
Mean Residual Life - Example
• The time to failure of an airborne navigation radar can be
represented using Weibull distribution with scale parameter
𝜂 = 2000 hours and 𝛽 = 2.1. It was told that the age of the
existing radar is 800 hours. Find the expected value of the
remaining life for this radar.
• (Ans: 1165.72 hours.)
• Try at home
• N.B. Use Gamma tables
EEE 543 14
MTTF of a Maintained System
• If an item is subject to preventive maintenance after every 𝑇𝑝𝑚
units, that is, at 𝑇𝑝𝑚 , 2𝑇𝑝𝑚 , 3𝑇𝑝𝑚 , etc. The expected time to
failure, 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹𝑝𝑚 , of the item is given by:
∞
𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹𝑝𝑚 = 𝑅𝑝𝑚 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
0
𝑇𝑝𝑚 2𝑇𝑝𝑚 3𝑇𝑝𝑚
= 𝑅𝑝𝑚 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + 𝑅𝑝𝑚 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + 𝑅𝑝𝑚 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + ⋯
0 𝑇𝑝𝑚 2𝑇𝑝𝑚
• 𝑅𝑝𝑚 𝑡 is the reliability of the item subject to preventive
maintenance
• N.B.:Preventive maintenance will not improve the reliability of
the system, if the time to failure is exponential
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EEE 543 15
MTTF of a Maintained System
• If the item is restored to ‘𝑎𝑠 − 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 − 𝑎𝑠 − 𝑛𝑒𝑤’ state after
each maintenance activity, then the reliability function between
any two maintenance tasks can be written as:
𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹𝑝𝑚
𝑇𝑝𝑚 𝑇𝑝𝑚 𝑇𝑝𝑚
2
= 𝑅 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + 𝑅(𝑇𝑝𝑚 )𝑅 𝑡 𝑑𝑡 + 𝑅 𝑇𝑝𝑚 𝑅 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
0 0 0
+⋯
𝑇𝑝𝑚
2
𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹𝑝𝑚 = 1 + 𝑅 𝑇𝑝𝑚 + 𝑅 𝑇𝑝𝑚 +⋯ 𝑅 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
0
𝑇𝑝𝑚
0
𝑅 𝑡 𝑑𝑡
𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹𝑝𝑚 =
𝐹(𝑇𝑝𝑚 )
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MTTF of a Maintained System - Ex
• A solid state radar is subject to preventive maintenance after
every 400 flight hours. The time to failure of the radar follows
exponential distribution with mean life 800 flight hours. Find
the 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹𝑝𝑚 of the radar.
• Ans: 800hrs
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MTTF of a Maintained System - Ex
• A manufacturing company buys two machines A and B. The
time to failure of machine A can be represented by Weibull
distribution with 𝜂 = 1000 hours and 𝛽 = 2. The time to
failure of machine B can be represented by Weibull distribution
with 𝜂 = 1000 hours and 𝛽 = 0.5. The maintenance manager
in charge of operation plan to apply preventive maintenance for
both the machines for every 200 hours, so that he can improve
the expected time to failure of the machines. Check whether the
manager’s decision is correct.
• Ans: 𝐴 = 𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡, 𝐵 = 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔
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Read on Your Own
• Mean Operating Time Between Failures (MTBF)
• Variance of Mean Time To Failure
• MTBM – Mean Time Between Maintenance
• MTBO – Mean Time Before Overhaul
• MTBCF – Mean Time Before Critical Failure
• MTBUR- Mean Time Before Unscheduled Removal
