In order to make a reliability statement of a component, both the variability of

its strength
and the variability of the customer loads are necessary to evaluate. The Guide t
reats load
analysis; therefore we will here focus on the variability connected to the loads
.
The variation is different depending on which entity we study. First of all, the
load time
signal itself is a physical quantity that varies over time. Further, there is a
variation between
different repeated measurements. The load signal is often condensed into, for ex
ample, a
rainflow matrix, which will not be identical for two repeated measurements. Reca
ll the
two repeated measurements on the train running in Norway; see Figure 2.3. It is
useful to
characterize the load by a measure of its severity, which should be connected to
fatigue life.
In such measured severities there is also variability between repeated measureme
nts.
When considering variability of loads, the discussion should be on two levels, o
n the level
of an individual customer, and on the level of a population of customers. For an
individual
customer, two measurements of the same stretch of road will not give exactly the
same load
signal; there will be a random variation between different load measurements, ev
en though
the conditions are the same. A population of customers can, for example, be all
potential
customers, a specific market, or a certain application. A population can be desc
ribed by a
statistical distribution that could be characterized by its mean and standard de
viation.
An important question is what population of customers is the target for our desi
gn. It
could be randomly chosen customers from all segments of vehicles and markets, a
randomly
chosen customer of a specific type of vehicle, a randomly chosen customer in Bra
zil, a
specific group of drivers, or a certain severe driver, for example, the 95%-driv
er that is
represented on the test track or in the test rig.