An Introduction to Reliability and Maintainability Engineering

Trade paperback. Glued binding. xviii, 486 p. Formulae; Illustrations. References. Index. From Wikipedia: "Reliability engineering is engineering that emphasizes dependability in the lifecycle management of a product. Dependability, or reliability, describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline within systems engineering. Reliability is theoretically defined as the probability of failure, the frequency of failures, or in terms of availability, a probability derived from reliability and maintainability. Maintainability and maintenance may be defined as a part of reliability engineering. Reliability plays a key role in cost-effectiveness of systems. Although reliability is defined and affected by stochastic parameters, according to some acknowledged specialists, quality, reliability and safety are not achieved by mathematics and statistics. Nearly all teaching and literature on the subject emphasizes these aspects, and ignores the reality that the ranges of uncertainty involved largely invalidate quantitative methods for prediction and measurement. Reliability engineering for complex systems requires a different, more elaborate systems approach than for non-complex systems. Reliability engineering may involve the creation of proper use studies and requirements specification, hardware & software design, functional (failure) analysis, testing and analyzing manufacturing, maintenance, transport, storage, spare parts stocking, operations research, human factors and technical documentation. Also data and information acquisition / organisation may be of importance. Effective reliability engineering requires understanding of the basics of failure mechanisms for which experience, broad engineering skills and good knowledge from many different special fields of engineering, like: tribology-, stress / fracture mechanics-, fatigue-, thermal-, shock-, electrical-and chemical "engineering". Reliability engineering is closely related to safety engineering and system safety, in that they use common methods for their analysis and may require input from each other. Reliability engineering focuses on costs of failure caused by system downtime, cost of spares, repair equipment, personnel and cost of warranty claims. The focus of safety engineering is normally not on cost, but on preserving life and nature, and therefore deals only with particular dangerous system failure modes. High reliability (safety) levels are also here the result of good engineering, attention to detail and almost never the result of only re-active failure management (Reliability Accounting / Statistics). "Reliability is, after all, engineering in its most practical form" as once stated by James R. Schlesinger, Former US Secretary of Defense." Fair. Cover has some wear and soiling. International student edition sticker on front cover. Title page is missing.