Design and use of reliability data base with analysis tool

摘要

With the advent of sophisticated computer tools, it is possible to give a distributed population of users direct access to reliability component operational histories. This allows the user a greater freedom in defining statistical populations of components and selecting failure modes. However, the reliability data analyst's current analytical instrumentarium is not adequate for this purpose. The terminology used in organizing and gathering reliability data is standardized, and the statistical methods used in analyzing this data are not always suitably chosen. This report attempts to establish a baseline with regard to terminology and analysis methods, to support the use of a new analysis tool. It builds on results obtained in several projects for the ESTEC and SKI on the design of reliability databases. Starting with component socket time histories, we identify a sequence of questions which should be answered prior to the employment of analytical methods. These questions concern the homogeneity and stationarity of (possible dependent) competing failure modes and the independence of competing failure modes. Statistical tests, some of them new, are proposed for answering these questions. Attention is given to issues of non-identifiability of competing risk and clustering of failure-repair events. These ideas have been implemented in an analysis tool for grazing component socket time histories, and illustrative results are presented. The appendix provides background on statistical tests and competing failure modes. (au) 4 tabs., 17 ills., 61 refs. (Atomindex citation 27:062945)