What Does Physics Have to Do with Reliability
Abstract
Carl and Fred discussing the physics of failure and how physics and chemistry impact reliability
Key Points
Join Carl and Fred as they discuss the science of failure and the approach practitioners can take to improve reliability by understanding failure mechanisms.
Topics include:
- Reliability theory vs applications
- Failure mechanisms and how they are used in FMEAs and reliability methods.
- Understanding science of failure
- Measuring and analyzing the mechanisms of failure
- Use of failure mechanisms in FMEAs
Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques, to field data analysis approaches.
Show Notes
Excerpt from chapter 6 of Effective FMEAs, by Carl Carlson, published by John Wiley & Sons, copyright 2012:
“Nature never breaks her own laws.” Leonardo da Vinci”
“Wherever possible, for high-risk issues the FMEA team should define the cause at the failure mechanism level. This means for System FMEAs or Subsystem FMEAs, the FMEA team should either proceed with a Component FMEA that can drill down to the precise failure mechanism that explains the failure mode and place it in the cause column, or continue with the “Five Whys” until isolating the cause at the mechanism level. No matter how the FMEA team chooses to proceed, wherever possible the FMEA team should properly define the cause at the failure mechanism level for high-risk issues.”
“It is helpful to emphasize the difference between failure mode, cause and failure mechanism. A failure mode is the manner in which the item or assembly could fail to meet the intended function and its requirements. A cause is the specific reason for the failure, an indication of how the failure could occur. A failure mechanism is the actual physical phenomenon behind the failure mode or the process of degradation or chain of events leading to and resulting in a particular failure mode. The mechanism should be listed as concisely and completely as possible. For a system, the failure mechanism is the process of error propagation following a component failure that leads to a system failure.”
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