Reliability: Theory and Application

Terms and Definitions

• Accident: an unplanned and undesired act
• Availability: the probability that a piece of equipment/system is
functioning satisfactorily at time t when used according to specified
conditions, where the total time includes operating time, logistical
time, active repair time, and administrative time
• Failure: the inability of an item/piece of equipment/system to
operate within specified guidelines
• Failure mode: the abnormality of item/equipment/system
performance that causes the item/piece of equipment/system to be
considered as having failed
• Hazard: the source of energy and the behavioural and physiological
factors that, when not controlled effectively, lead to harmful
incidents
• Hazard rate: the ratio of the change in the number of items that
have malfunctioned to the number of items that have survived at
time t
• Maintainability: the probability that a failed system/piece of
equipment/item will be restored to its satisfactory operating state

• Maintenance: all actions necessary to retain an item/piece of

equipment/system in, or restore it to, a specified condition

• Mean time to failure (exponential distribution): the sum of the

operating time of given items divided by the total number of
failures

• Mean time to repair: MTTR depending on item/equipment/system

maintainability equal to the mean item/equipment/system repair
time; in the case of exponentially distributed times to repair, mean
time to repair is the reciprocal of the repair rate
 What is reliability?
Reliability: the probability that an item/piece of equipment/system will
carry out its specified mission satisfactorily for the stated time period
when used under specified conditions. Reliability is associated with
unexpected failures of products or services and understanding why these
failures occur is key to improving reliability. The main reasons why failures
occur include:
• The product is not fit for purpose or more specifically the design is
inherently incapable.
• The item may be overstressed in some way.
• Failures can be caused by wear-out
• Failures might be caused by variation.
• Wrong specifications may cause failures.
• Misuse of the item may cause failure.
• Items are designed for a specific operating environment and if they are
then used
• outside this environment then failure can occur.
 Why is Reliability important?
Unreliability has a number of unfortunate
consequences and therefore for many products and
services is a serious threat. For example poor reliability
can have implications for:
• Safety
• Competitiveness
• Profit margins
• Cost of repair and maintenance
• Delays further up supply chain
• Reputation
• Good will
 Measuring reliability
Many customers will produce a statement of the reliability
requirements that is included in the specification of the
product. This statement should include the following:

• the definition of failure related to the product’s function

and should cover all failure modes relevant to the function;

• A full description of the environments in which the product

will be stored, transported, operated and maintained;

• A statement of the reliability requirement

 The bath tub curve
The bath-tub curve is a representation of the reliability performance of
components or non-repaired items. It observes the reliability performance of a
large sample of homogenous items entering the field at some start time (usually
zero). If we observe the items over their lifetime without replacement then we can
observe three distinct shapes or periods. Figure shows the bath-tub curve and
these 3 periods. The infant mortality or early failures portion shows that the
population will initially experience a high hazard function that starts to decrease.
 Life distributions
• Distribution functions
If you take a large number of measurements you can draw a histogram
to show the how the measurements vary. A more useful diagram, for
continuous data, is the probability density function. The area under the
curve of the distribution is equal to 1, i.e.
The probability of a value falling between any two values x1and x2 is the area
bounded by this interval, i.e.
Usually in reliability, the equation becomes
Probability density function
Reliability Function
Expected value
Particular life distributions
Reliability Networks
A system can form various types of networks or configurations in performing
reliability analysis. Some commonly occurring configurations are presented below.

Series Configuration
If we let Xj denote the event that the jth unit is successful, then the
reliability of the series configuration/system is given by
For independent events:

where
P(Xj) is the probability of occurrence of success event Xj, for j=1,2,3,...,m.
If we let Rj =P(Xj) for j=1,2,3,...,m in above Eqn., the equation becomes

where
Rj is the unit j reliability; for j=1,2,3,...,m. For constant failure rate, λj, of unit j,
using the Eqn. given below the reliability of unit j is given by
Therefore,

Mean time to failure can be determined for series system as:

Assume that a mining system is composed of five independent and identical
subsystems in series. The constant failure rate of each subsystem is 0.0006
failures per hour. Calculate the mining system mean time to failure and
reliability for a 100-h mission.
Parallel Configuration

In this case, all m units are active and at least one of these units must operate
normally for the successful operation of the system. The block diagram of an “m” unit
parallel configuration/system is shown in below Figure; each block in the diagram
represents a unit.
For independent units, Eqn becomes
Subtracting Eqn in reliability eqn., we obtain

Where, Rp is the parallel system/configuration reliability.

For the constant failure rate, λj, of unit j, subtracting above Eq. from unity; then,
k-out-of-m Configuration
A mining system is composed of three independent and
identical units operating in parallel. At least two of these units
must operate normally for the system to succeed. Calculate
the mining system mean time to failure if the unit failure rate
is 0.001 failures per hour.
Useful Mining-Equipment-Reliability-Related
Measures
Assume that in above problem, the constant failure rates of shovel, dump truck,
working face, and dumping place are 0.005 failures per hour, 0.006 failures per
hour, 0.007 failures per hour, and 0.008 failures per hour, respectively. Calculate
the open pit series system mean time to failure.