Reliability Theory

Dr. Shakuntla Singla

Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics and Humanities
Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University),Mullana ,Ambala ,Haryana
 Outline:
 BackGround

 Basic Concept and Definitions

 Literature Review

 Different Systems
BackGround
The study of operational research started during the second world war and afterwards. With the
development of operational research, the study of reliability theory emerged as by product in
context of defence studies. The words reliable and reliability are in use from ancient time. In
fact these occur frequently in social, political, economical and practical fields to indicate the
efficiency of a person or a mechanical equipment. A mathematical shape to the word reliability
was given later in 1950 with its scientific use for defense purpose.
In 1965, a complex missile program ran into hundreds of millions of dollars which included a reliability program. This
program was a line of high reliability, premium quality and costly parts, designed to be used with sizable safety factors.
Another area of modern technology involving reliability was the space program. It was observed and realized that the
percentage of successful space launchings has increased dramatically since the early days of our space program due to the
application of reliability concept. Transportation sector is other area where the reliability plays an important role
The development of reliability technology in India is an interesting and encouraging history for
researchers. The theory of reliability plays an important role, directly or indirectly in almost all of our
daily life problems. Some of the systems whose reliability is of immediate concern to the society in
general are power, transportation, medical care, steel and communication industries etc. The history
of modern engineering reflects that system failures can occur in any field. Industrial accident in Union
Carbide, Bhopal in 1984 and power reactor accident in Chernobyl, USSR in 1986 are prime examples
of complex system failure.
To compete with the global market and to achieve higher production goals, the industrial system should remain operative for
maximum possible duration. Actually, these systems are subjected to random failures. These failures may be due to poor
designs, wrong manufacturing techniques, lack of operative skills and experience, adoption of poor maintenance policies,
power fluctuations, operations at overload/under load, delay in starting the maintenance, delay in getting the equipment’s
behavior information, organizational rigidity and complexity and many a times human error also. Therefore, to compete in
the global market, high production and good quality (operation and performance wise) is must and can be achieved by
maintaining system failure at the lowest possible level (i.e. highest system availability).
Concept of system reliability was developed during the last six decades mainly in late 1940’s and early 1950’s.
The fields of communication and transportation were perhaps the first to witness the rapid growth in
complexity due to the advancement in electronics and control systems. Reliability engineering has been
stressed for several years in the field of military-aircraft manufacturers. In aircraft design, avionics subsystem
was more complex and hence been used for reliability analysis.
Reliability techniques are used to judge the availability and maintainability of a system. Maintainability and availability are two
main features, which are closely related to reliability. The aim of reliability theory is to evaluate errors in measurement and
suggest ways of improving the tests so that the errors are minimized. A reliability, availability, maintainability (RAM) theory is
very much convenient for the manufacturing industry. Reliability and availability are key attributes of technical systems. Although
there have been tremendous advances in the art and science of system evaluation, yet it is very difficult to assess their
performance with a very high accuracy or precision. For finding the critical component of the system which affects the system
performance mostly, a composite measure of reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) named as the RAM-index has
been introduced which influences the effects of failure and repair rate parameters on its performance
BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS
Reliability of a system (product) deals with the concept of dependability, successful operation or
performance and the absence of failures. Reliability is the probability that a machine (product)
can perform its intended function, without failure, for a specified interval of time when operating
under standard conditions. It should be observed that the above stated definition stresses four
significant factors: probability, intended function, time and operating conditions. These four
elements play an important role in characterizing the reliability of an item.
 The concept of reliability has been interpreted in number of
different ways, out of which few are listed below:-
Reliability is the probability that the device operate without failures for a given time under the specified operating
conditions.

Reliability of a system is failure free operation for a definite period, under the given operating conditions with
minimum time lost for repair and preventive maintenance.

The reliability of an equipment is assumed to be the capacity of the equipment to maintain given properties under
specified conditions for a period of time.
Let be the size of the population out of which units survive the test while fail, then reliability function is given by

(Taking N0 fixed)
The rate at which component fails can be defined as

Dividing both sides of equation (1.3) by , we obtain the instantaneous probability of failure that is,
Dividing both sides of equation (3) by , we obtain the instantaneous probability of failure that is,

Using (1) in (4), we get

(5)
Integrating (5), we get
(6)
] (7)
Failure Rate (: The failure rate is expressed in terms of failures per unit time. It is
computed as the ratio of number of failures of the items undergoing the test time.
,
(8)
where = failure rate, = No. of failures during test interval, T = Total test time.

Repair rate ( The repair rate is expressed in terms of repairs per unit time. It is
computed as the ratio of number of repairs of the items undergoing the test time.
,
(9)
= repair rate, = No. of repair during test interval T = Total test time.
Availability
Availability is a performance criterion for repairable systems that accounts for both the reliability and maintainability
aspects of a system. It is defined as the probability that the system is operating properly when it is required for use.
That is, availability is the probability that a system is not in the failed state or undergoing a repair action when it needs
to be used. The numerical value of availability is expressed as a probability from 0 to 1. Availability calculations take
into accounts both the failures and repairs of the system. For example, if a lamp has 99.9% availability, then there will
be one time out of a thousand that someone needs to use the lamp but it is non-operational because of the switch is
broken, or it is waiting for the replacement of lamps etc
Availability Classification: The definition of availability is somewhat flexible, depending on what types of downtimes
are considered in the analysis. As a result, there are a number of different classifications of availability:
(i) Point (instantaneous) Availability

(ii) Average Up-Time Availability (Mean Availability)

(iii) Steady State Availability

(iv) Operational Availability

Point (instantaneous) Availability: Point or instantaneous availability is the probability that a system (or component) will
be operational at any random time. It is defined by expected up time of the system.

Average Up-Time (Mean) Availability: The mean availability is the proportion of time during a mission or time-period
when the system is available for use. It represents the mean value of the instantaneous availability function over the period (0,
T):
Steady State Availability: The steady state availability of the system is the limit of the instantaneous availability function as time approaches infinity.

Operational Availability: Operational availability is a measure of availability, which includes all experienced sources of downtime. The equation for
operational availability is:
Uptime/ (Operation Cycle)
where the operation cycle is the overall time period of operation being investigated, and uptime is the total time the system was functioning during the
operating cycle. Thus, operational availability is the availability that the customer actually experiences. It is essentially the a posteriori availability
based on actual events that happened to the system.
Maintainability:
Maintainability, like reliability, has its own unique and diversified elements. Maintainability is a characteristic of a design, installation, and
operation, usually expressed as the probability that a machine can be retained in, or restored to specified operable condition within a
specified interval of time when maintenance is required. In other words maintainability measures the ease and speed with which a system
can be restored to operational status after a failure occurs. This refers to the aspects of a product that increases its serviceability and
reparability, increases the cost effectiveness of maintenance, and ensures that the product meets the requirements for its intended use.
Maintainability is also a probability in the same way as reliability, its value lies between zero and one. Good maintainability will ensure
that reliable equipment will be available to the users.
Maintainability v/s Reliability:
Reliability and maintainability jointly affect the availability of the equipment. Highly reliable equipment or a system
may fail rarely, but, if its maintainability is poor, then it takes very long time to repair and decommission once it fails.
Thus, the availability of highly reliable equipment may reduce considerably, if the maintenance is poor. Similarly
equipment may have very good maintainability, but if it has poor reliability then it would fail frequently and in turn
availability would get reduced. Maintainability may be given less importance in some applications like missiles and
rocket propulsion etc. but, for general industrial equipments and components, maintainability has to be given more
considerations
RENEWALTHEORY
For a repairable system, the time of operation is not continuous. In other words, the system’s life cycle
can be described by a sequence of up and down states. The system operates until it fails, then it is repaired and
returned to its original operating state. It will fail again after some random time of operation, get repaired again
and this process of failure and repair will repeat. This is called a renewal process and is defined as a sequence of
independent and non-negative random variables. In this case, the random variables are the times-to-failure and the
time-to-repair. Each time a unit fails and is restored to working order, a renewal is said to have occurred. This type
of renewal process is known as an alternating renewal process, since the state of the component alternates between
a functioning state and a repair state.
System Reliability: System reliability is a measure of the performance of the system under the specified conditions. In
most of the complex systems it has been observed that, they consist of components and subsystems connected in series, parallel
or standby or a combination of these. To calculate system reliability following basic steps are required:

(i) The components and subsystems, which constitute a given system and whose individual reliability factors can be estimated,
are identified and computed.

(ii) The configuration in which the components are connected to form the system is represented in logical manner either by a
block diagram or by a transition diagram.
(ii) The configuration in which the components are connected to form the system is represented in logical manner either by a
block diagram or by a transition diagram.

(iii) The condition for successful operation of the system is then established, that is, it is decided as how the components
should function. For example, we can consider whether all components be operative or it is sufficient that k out of n components
function.

(iv) The combination rules of probability theory are stated to be applied to estimate the system reliability.
System reliability can be enhanced by using various techniques as given below:
(i) Parts improvement method
(ii) Effective and creative design
(iii) System simplification
(iv) Structural redundancy
(v) Maintenance and repair
TYPE OF SYSTEMS
On the basis of repair point of view, the systems can be classified as:

1. Non-Repairable System

This type of system operates only once. Such systems have an instantaneous life requirement e.g. fuses, missiles, flash bulbs.
Reliability is the important criteria to calculate the effectiveness of non-repairable system.
2. Repairable System:
a) Continuously operating System: This type of system once put in operation continues to operate till its failure or the system
is stopped for planned maintenance. Examples are nuclear furnaces, earth satellites etc.

b) Once on and off operating system: This type of system is characterized by the fact that it can be operated and re-operated
when desired e.g. turbines, pumps, computer, etc.
 Configuration of a system
(1)Series System (2) Parallel System
(3)Mixed Configuration(Series-Parallel , Parallel-Series)

Series System-
In a system ,if any one component fails then whole system is said to be failed. The system is
operative only if all component are operative .The components need not be physically
connected in series for the system like wheels of a car to be called a Series System.
…………
1 2 3 n

In this system , the reliability R(t) is given by : (t)

Parallel System-
This system is said to be failed if all its component fails . The system is operative even one of
the component fails .

1
Reliability
R(t)=1- 2.
.
3.
.

n
 Series – Parallel system:
It is a system in which there are number of units in series configuration and each these units is further
composed of many sub units with parallel configuration.
Parallel- series system:
It is a system in which there are number of units in parallel configuration and each these units is further
composed of many sub units with series configuration.
1st 2nd mth (stages)

1 1 1
1 2 n
….1st stage….
2 2 2 .......
1 2 ….. 2nd stage..
n

3 3 3 …...3rd stage...
1 2 n

.......mth stage
n n n 1 2 n

Series – Parallel configuration Parallel-Series Configuration

Conclusion:
The reliability of complex systems has emerged as a thrust area because of occurrence of disastrous event in the industries.
The manufacturers are highly concerned about reliability of the systems. The manufacturers lose billions of dollars every year
as a direct consequence of the unreliability of industrial plants in terms of cost of lost production, cost of fixing or replacing
equipment and of course the loss of human life that cannot be measured in terms of money. Huge amount is spent annually on
the planned maintenance of industrial systems and assets in order to maintain certain levels of reliability. So, reliability has
become one of the vital ingredients in system planning, design, development and operational phase of the system. Its study can
benefit industries in terms of higher productivity and low maintenance costs.
Thanks to all listeners ………….