Sudan University of Science and Technology

School of Mechanical Engineering

Reliability & Maintainability
Final Exam
Date:- 2016/10/7 Time:- Three Hours

Answer All Questions

Question One
a) At what Phase of the product life cycle do we apply exponential distribution to
predict the reliability of the product ?
At the Useful Life phase we apply the exponential distribution to predict the
reliability of the product.

b) The length of the time that a particular piece of equipment operates before failure is a
random variable with cumulative distribution function :

𝑭(𝒕) = 𝟏 − 𝒆𝒙𝒑 − 𝟎. 𝟎𝟒𝟑𝒕𝟐.𝟔

Calculate the following :

1. The probability that the equipment operates for more than five years without experiencing
failure

*given:

𝑇 = 5 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠
2.6
𝑅(𝑡) = 1 − 𝐹(𝑡) or 𝑅(𝑡) = 𝑒 −0.043×𝑡
2.6
𝐹(5)=1 − 𝑒 −0.043×5 = 0.9406

𝑅(5) = 1 − 𝐹(5) = 1 − 0.9406 = 0.0593 = %5.93

2. suppose that 100 pieces of the equipment are placed into in year 0:

What fraction of the units surviving 4 years fail in year 5 ?

𝐹(5)−𝐹(4)
*Conditional Reliability = 𝑅(4)

2.6
𝐹(4) = 1 − 𝑒 −0.043×4 = 0.7941

𝑅(4) = 1 − 𝐹(4) = 1 − 0.7941 = 0.2059

𝐹(5) − 𝐹(4) 0.9406 − 0.7941

∴ = = 0.7115 = %71.15
𝑅(4) 0.2059
Question Two
(A) Failure mode of a component follows Weibull distribution model with :
Shape parameter =2.1 , Scale parameter = 12000

Find :

a. Reliability at 5000 hours

*given :

𝛽 = 2.1

𝜂 𝑜𝑟 𝜃 = 12000

𝑡 = 5000 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠

𝑡 𝛽
−( )
𝑅(𝑡) = 𝑒 𝜂

5000 2.1
−( )
𝑅(5000) = 𝑒 12000 = 0.8529

b. Probability of the component failure during the first year of operation (360 days)

𝑡 = 360 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 = 360 × 24 = 8640 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠

𝑡 𝛽
−( )
𝐹(𝑡) = 1 − 𝑅(𝑡) = 1 − 𝑒 𝜂

8640 2.1
−( )
𝐹(8640) = 1 − 𝑒 12000 = 0.3944

Suppose another component is added on Series. Fined:

 Reliability of the system at 5000 hours.

(B) An item has constant failure rate =5.0*10-4 failures per hour. When the item fails, it is
repaired to an “as good as new” condition.
The associated mean downtime is 6 hours.

The item is supposed to be in continuous operation.

*given :

𝜆 = 5.0 × 10−4 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒/ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟

𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝐷𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 (𝑀𝐷𝑇) = 6 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠

a. Find the average availability of the item.

 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝐹
𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐴𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦(𝐴0 ) =
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑅 + 𝑀𝐷𝑇
1 1
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝐹 = = = 2000 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠
𝜆 5 × 10−4
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝐹 2000 2000
𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐴𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦(𝐴0 ) = = = = 0.9970
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑅 + 𝑀𝐷𝑇 2000 + 6 2006

b. How many hours per year (365 days) will the item on average be out of operation?

𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑚 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = (1 −

𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐴𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦) × 𝑡
𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑚 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = (1 − 0.9970) ×
365 × 24 = 26.28 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠