0 Reliability
No. of
Interval No. of Percent survivors Reliability Failure
(years) failures fail in at end of at end of rate at
interval interval interval end of
interval
0-0 0 0 1000 1.000 0.450
0< t 1 450 45% 550 55% 0.145
1< t 2 80 8% 470 47% 0.181
2< t 3 85 8.5% 385 38.5% 1.000
3< t 4 385 38.5% 0 0% --.--
Total 1,000 100%
Reliability
30% 0.6
20% 0.4
10% 0.2
0%
0
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5
Years Years
1
Hazard or failure rate
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 2 3 4
years
R(t) = 1- F(t)
Infant
Mortality Wearout
Failure
Rate Failure Chance failures
Rate
Failure
Rate Failure
Rate
1 1
MTTF (or MTBF) failure rate (1 )
1
Failure Rate : h(t )
Illustrative Example:
(Adapted from JM Juran and FM Gryna. Quality Planning and Analysis, (1993),
McGraw-Hill, p. 291)
R(t) = e–t/
R(t) = e–(0.5 hr/50 hrs)
= 0.99005
To find MTBF= such that R(t) = 0.95, we equate this value with
the reliability formula with t=0.5 hour.
ln [e–(0.5 / )] = ln(0.950)
-(0.5/) = -0.05129329439
=9.7479 hours
t i
average time to failure t for n samples of failures.
i 1
n
Where ti= number of hours/cycles, etc at which
Example:
Eight Christmas light bulbs were put on test and their lifetimes
until failures were recorded as follows:
Failure no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Failure time 35 53 78 130 135 167 203 253
(hours) 8 5 4 5 2 4 5 9
Estimate the MTTF and failure rate for the next hour of the lights, what
is the probability that another such light would last all 19 days of
continuous use of the holiday season?
n
MTTF= t i
= average of all failure hours = 1322.75 hrs
i 1
D
R(t)=80%
G
R(t)=60%
A B C E
R(t)=95% R(t)=90% R(t)=99% R(t)=75%
H I
R(t)=92% R(t)=97%
Components in series
F
R(t)=85%
H and I in series and
Lecture Notes: Reliability parallel wipage
th G 89
Components in parallel
A complex system may consist of a large number of components
each with its own reliability value. We may model such a complex
system by a system reliability diagram:
= P(ABC…..Z)
Logical “AND” = “A works and B works and C works and all
others work”
Rsys in parallel = 1 (1 Ri ) =
i 1
1-[(1-R1)(1-R2)….(1-Rn)]
= P(ABC…….Z )
Logical “OR” = “A works or B works or C works or at least
others work”
RDEFsubsystem = 1-(1-RD)(1-RE)(1-RF) =
= 1-(1-0.80)(1-0.75)(1-0.85) =
0.9925.
Practice Problems:
5. Let’s suppose that there are only three areas that a bicycle could
fail: if the pedal gear couldn’t bite on the chain, if the chain
breaks, and if both brakes (front wheel and rear wheel) fail.
Suppose further that the pedal gear has a lifetime that follows an
exponential distribution with a MTTF of 1500 hours of continuous
use, the chain’s lifetime is normally distributed with mean lifetime
7. Your car’s radiator usually uses up all its water (full content at the
beginning) in about 5 hours of continuous motor run about 90% of
the time. From your experience, this water is used up following a
normal distribution with mean time of 4 hours.. When should you
replenish radiator water back to full level such that you will not run
out of water 95% of the time?