Reliability Engineering: Probabilistic Models and Maintenance Methods, Second Edition

Without proper reliability and maintenance planning, even the most efficient and seemingly cost-effective designs can incur enormous expenses due to repeated or catastrophic failure and subsequent search for the cause. Today’s engineering students face increasing pressure from employers, customers, and regulators to produce cost-efficient designs that are less prone to failure and that are safe and easy to use.

The second edition of Reliability Engineering aims to provide an understanding of reliability principles and maintenance planning to help accomplish these goals. This edition expands the treatment of several topics while maintaining an integrated introductory resource for the study of reliability evaluation and maintenance planning. The focus across all of the topics treated is the use of analytical methods to support the design of dependable and efficient equipment and the planning for the servicing of that equipment. The argument is made that probability models provide an effective vehicle for portraying and evaluating the variability that is inherent in the performance and longevity of equipment.

With a blend of mathematical rigor and readability, this book is the ideal introductory textbook for graduate students and a useful resource for practising engineers.

Joel A. Nachlas received his B. E. S. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1970, his M. S. in 1972 and his Ph. D. in 1976 both from the University of Pittsburgh. He served on the faculty of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech for 41 years and retired in March, 2016. His research interests are in the applications of probability and statistics to problems in reliability and quality control. In addition to his normal teaching activities during his time at Virginia Tech, he served as the coordinator for the department’s graduate program in Operations Research and for their dual master’s degree that is operated with Ecole des Mines de Nantes in France. From 1992 through 2011, he regularly taught Reliability Theory at the Ecole Polytechnique de Nice-Sophia Antipolis. He is the co-author of over fifty refereed articles, has served in numerous editorial and referee capacities and has lectured on reliability and maintenance topics throughout North America and Europe.