The Reliability Engineering Glossary
Reliability engineering and related fields use a vocabulary unique to our field of endeavor. For example, the term ‘reliability’ has the meaning of ‘trustworthy’ in everyday English use. For us, ‘reliability’ has a precise engineering definition.
Glossary description and plans
This glossary is meant to help us learn the language of reliability engineering. The category of ‘Terms’ is like a dictionary, including terms and their definitions as used by engineers. The category of ‘Methods’ is a listing of the techniques, tools, approaches, or concepts that may be found within a reliability plan. In the near future, we expect to expand the ‘Methods’ pages to include guidelines on use or application, examples, and additional references.
We also plan to expand the glossary to include formulas and failure mechanisms. Please let us know if there is another list of terms that should be added if you do not find a term that should be included or if you would like to recommend a change to an existing entry.
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- Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA)The technique of characterizing materials by applying sinusoidal stress and measuring strain. The analysis is useful to understand a design’s complex modulus and viscoelastic behavior. Read More
- Dynamic random access memory (DRAM)A type of memory technology permitting the reading/writing to any addressed locations in any sequence with similar access times to each location. Read More
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- Early field results analysisThe evaluation of customer complaints, product returns, and associated data for a specified period of time since initial product launch. Read More
- Early lifeThe initial period of use by a customer. The duration of the period commonly defined as 1, 3, or 12 months. Read More
- Early-life-failure rate (ELFR)The failure rate within the defined duration of early life. Read More
- Early life period (tELF)The duration commonly defined as 1, 3, or 12 months. Defined by the user or supplier. Read More
- Economic consequencesThe only consequences of a functional failure, which is evident to the operating organization and has no direct effect on operating safety. Read More
- Economic-life limitA life limit imposed on an item to reduce the frequency of age-related failures that have economic consequences. Read More
- Economic-tradeoff studyA cost study to determine whether a proposed course of action is cost-effective. Read More
- Eddy current testingTesting used on conductive material to measure wall thickness, defect locations, hidden pits or seams, gas pockets, inclusions, and coating thicknesses, allowing rapid results at low cost but of only a comparative nature with possible frequent calibrations required. Read More
- Effective masked thresholdThe level of auditory danger signal just audible over the ambient noise, taking account of the acoustic parameters of both the ambient noise in the signal reception area and the listening deficiencies (hearing protection, hearing loss, and other masking effects). The method for calculating the(...) Read More
- Effective resolutionThe size of the data category when the total measurement system variation. This is determined by the length of the confidence interval based on the measurement system variation. The number of distinct categories (ndc) can be determined by dividing the size into the expected process(...) Read More
- Effectiveness criterionThe criterion for judging whether a specific task would be capable of reducing the failure rate to the required level for the appropriate consequence branch of the decision diagram. Read More
- Electrical deviceAn item with an operation dependent on electron conduction within a conductor. Read More
- Electrical parameter driftThe change in an electrical characteristic value over time. Read More
- Electro-Magnetic Interference/Compatibility tests (EMI/EMC)One-time tests that verify that the operation of a circuit is immune at some level from the effects of external influences. Read More
- Electromigration, aluminumA failure mechanism in semiconductor devices. Due to momentum exchange between the current-carrying electrons and the host metal lattice, aluminum ions can drift in the direction of the electron current. In the presence of flux divergent sites, this drift induces a stress gradient that at(...) Read More
- Electromigration, copperA failure mechanism in semiconductor devices. As in the case of aluminum (Al), momentum exchange between current-carrying electrons and copper (Cu) ions in a Cu line cause Cu ions to drift in the direction of the electron current. In the presence of flux divergence sites where the flux of Cu(...) Read More
- Electrostatic chargeAn item’s electric charge while at rest. Read More
- Electrostatic discharge (ESD)The sudden, spark, transfer of electrostatic charge between items that were at different electrostatic potentials. Read More
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