Reliability and Testing

Abstract

Kirk and Fred discussing how much of reliability engineering is devoted to testing and what other functions should a reliability engineer do.

Key Points

Join Kirk and Fred as they discuss what a reliability engineer should be doing before a prototypes or parts are available.
Topics include:

• Reliability engineering traditionally focused on prediction of system failures based on historical and many times outdated models long before there are parts or prototypes to test, which has sometimes mislead reliability risks mitigation efforts (See “Reliability Prediction- Continued Reliance on a Misleading Approach” below in notes) .
• The NASA Perseverance rover on Mars, and its scout helicopter Ingenuity found a limit in line of sight communication, which is a test that found new limits to the design, but confirmed the helicopters fail=safe design.
• A new iteration of a product may not need as much testing if there is a significant reliability history from the field reliability data, which does not need to be rediscovered in a test.
• FMEA’s may uncover reliability risks issues that can be corrected before and without any test, but testing can and may be used to confirm the mitigation of the potential cause of failures.

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.

SOR 721 Reliability and TestingKirk Gray

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Show Notes

Please click on this link to access a relatively new analysis of traditional reliability prediction methods article from the US ARMY and CALCE titled  “Reliability Prediction – Continued Reliance on a Misleading Approach”

For more information on the newest discovery testing methodology here is a link to the book “Next Generation HALT and HASS: Robust design of Electronics and Systems” written by Kirk Gray and John Paschkewitz.