MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY

ENGINEERING
CGE676
Lecture 1: Introduction of Maintenance & Reliability
Engineering

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

What is reliability?
ability of an item to perform a required
function under given conditions for a given
time interval
IEC 60050
the probability that an item will perform a
required function without failure under stated
conditions for a stated period of time
Smith, D.J. (2005)

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

 Development of maintenance &
reliability engineering
First generation maintenance (pre-WW2)
Industry not highly mechanized so downtime not
particularly important.
Most equipment simple and over-designed
Reliable and easy to repair.
Eventually just wore out.
Only systematic maintenance required - simple
cleaning, servicing and lubrication.
Philosophy: Fix it when it breaks!

Reproduced with permission from Andrew

K. S. Jardine

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

Second generation maintenance (WW2 to mid-70s)
More mechanisation and concern over downtime.
Idea that failures could and should be prevented.
Awareness of burn-in failure mode
Bath-tub curve
)
Increase in maintenance costs as a proportion of
total operating costs.
Development of first planning and scheduling
tools.
Philosophy: Preventative overhauls
Reproduced with permission from Andrew
K. S. Jardine Faculty of Chemical Engineering
 3rd generation maintenance (mid-70s +)
Aircraft data identifies 6 different failure mode patterns.
Growth of mechanisation and automation increases
focus on plant availability and reliability.
Effect of failures on HS&E becomes important as
regulations tighten.
Cost of maintenance increases: Often 1st or 2nd highest
of all operating costs.
New techniques become available to collect data that
would enable maintainers to:
To predict failures - Predictive Maintenance
Optimise maintenance decisions - Asset Management
Reproduced with permission from Andrew
K. S. Jardine Faculty of Chemical Engineering
SoReliability
Can be defined as - The probability that an item/system
will perform a required function without failure under
stated conditions for a stated period of time
Can also be expressed as the number of failures over a
period
A time dependent characteristic.
It can only be determined after an elapsed time but
can be predicted at any time.
It is the probability that a product or service will
operate properly for a specified period of time (design
life) under the design operating conditions without
failure.
Faculty of Chemical Engineering
Key variables for reliability
Since reliability is defined as a probability, its
definition will be based on a few key (random)
variables, e.g.
Time to failure
Time between failures
Number of failures in a given period of time

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

How reliability is measured?
The probability of an item that does not fail in a
time interval (0,t], survival probability
Beside being measured as a probability, reliability
can be quantified via e.g. the following parameters
or metrics:
Mean number of failures in a given time
(failure rate)
Mean time between failures (MTBF) the
average time between successive failures.
Mean time to failure (MTTF) - the average time
that elapses until a failure occurs.

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

Probabilistic nature of reliability
To quantify reliability, probability and statistical
methods must be used
Usually concerned with probability values that
are very high or very low
Quantifying these numbers requires further
information
We are concerned with the extreme tails of
distributions
Reliability data from past cannot be used to
make credible forecasts of the future
behaviours, without taking non-statistical factors
into account
Faculty of Chemical Engineering
 Objectives of Reliability Engineering
To apply engineering knowledge and specialist
techniques to prevent or reduce the likelihood or
frequency of failure
To identify and correct the causes of failures that do
occur, despite of the efforts to prevent them
To determine ways of coping with failures that do
occur, if their causes have not been corrected
To apply methods for estimating the likely reliability
of new designs, and for analysing reliability data

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

Theory and basic concepts
Qualitative reliability
FTA, FMEA, FMECA
Quantitative reliability
Statistical reliability
Physics-based reliability
Maintenance
Time-based maintenance
Condition-based maintenance

Faculty of Chemical Engineering

Next Lecture

More theory and basic concepts of

reliability

Probabilistic Reliability

Faculty of Chemical Engineering