Subject: Quality Management

VI Semester Mechanical Engineering

Reliability Theory
Dr. Manoj Kumar Sain
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, M &g, Jaipur

1
Introduction
• Reliability of a system is defined as how much we can trust on the
proper functioning of it.
• Reliability study is becoming important during the design of
engineering systems, as our daily lives are dependent on the
satisfactory functioning of these systems. e.g. computers, trains,
automobiles, aircraft, etc.
• Competition, public pressures, complex and sophisticated products,
prestige and high acquisition cost are the factors increasing the
importance of reliability in designed systems.

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 Bathtub Hazard/Failure Rate
Curve
• It is a well known concept to represent
failure behaviour of various products
because the failure rate of these items
changes with time.
• Its name stem from its shape
resembling a bathtub.
• Three distinct regions of the curve are:
burn-in region, useful life region, and
wear-out region. These regions denote
three phases that a newly manufactured
product passes through during its life
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Hazard Regions
• In burn-in period, the product time dependent failure rate decreases due to overcoming the poor
workmanship, substandard parts and materials, poor quality control, poor manufacturing methods,
incorrect installation and start-up human error, inadequate debugging, incorrect packaging,
inadequate processes, and poor handling methods . This region is also called as “debugging region,”
“infant mortality region,” and “break-in region.”
• During the useful life region, the product hazard rate remains constant and the failures occur
randomly or unpredictably. Some of the reasons for their occurrence are undetectable defects, abuse,
low safety factors, higher random stress than expected, unavoidable conditions, and human errors.
• During the wear-out region, the product hazard rate increases and some of the reasons for the
occurrence of “wear-out region” failures are
Poor maintenance
Wear due to friction
Wear due to aging
Corrosion and creep
Wrong overhaul practices
Short designed-in life of the product

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General and Specific Hazard
Rate Functions
The general hazard rate of an item is defined by

Where
λ(t) = item hazard rate (i.e., time t dependent failure rate)
f(t) = item failure density function (probability density function)
F(t) = cumulative distribution function (i.e., the item failure
probability at time t)
R(t) = item reliability at time t

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•  As

Hence,

• This expression is quite useful to obtain item hazard rate when the
item’s reliability function is known.

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Hazard Rate for Exponential Distribution
•The
  failure density function of the exponential distribution is defined by

• Where λ is the distribution parameter (known as failure rate) and t is

time.
• The expression for exponential distribution’s hazard rate:

• The right-hand side of Equation (3.6) is independent of time t. Thus, λ

is called constant failure rate.

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General and Specific Reliability
Functions
• 
• The general reliability function can be obtained by rearrangig

Integrating both sides of Eqn. over the time interval [0, t], we get

Since at t = 0, R(t) = 1.

Or

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Mean Time to Failure (MTTF)
•  MTTF is an important reliability parameter which can be obtained by
using any of the following three formulas

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