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Failure Modes
• These define the cause of failure of a component or a system
and can be classified into
1. Primary Failure – Component fails due faults within the
manufacturing process. Mostly occurs during the burn in
period.
2. Secondary Failure – Component fails due to causes that lie
FAILURE ANALYSIS outside the manufacturing envelope or design. Mostly occurs
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during the operational life of the component.
3. Command Failure – the component doesn’t fail but another
component working with it fails and the signal doesn’t reach
the main component. The component doesn’t need to be
repaired in this case

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Availability Point Availability

• “The probability that an item is in state of functioning at a • Probability that the system is in the state of functioning at the
given point in time (point availability) or over a stated period of given instant of time 𝑡.
time (interval availability) when operated, maintained and
• Denoted by 𝐴(𝑡)
supported in a prescribed manner”
• Used to measure the combined effect of reliability, maintenance • Depending on the time to failure and time to repair
and logistic support on the operational effectiveness of the distributions, one can use Markov chain, renewal process,
system. regenerative process, semi-Markov process and semi-
• Availability measures include: regenerative process models to derive the expression for point
• Point Availability availability
• Interval Availability 𝜇 𝜆
𝐴 𝑡 = + 𝑒 − 𝜆+𝜇 𝑡
• Steady State / Inherent Availability, 𝜆+𝜇 𝜆+𝜇
• Operational Availability
• Achieved Availability.

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Interval Availability Inherent / Steady State Availability

• “The expected fractional duration of an interval (0, t] that the • “The steady state probability (𝑎𝑠 𝑡 → ∞) that an item will be
system is in state of functioning” in a state of functioning, assuming that this probability depends
• Denoted AA(t) only on the time-to-failure and time to repair distributions”
𝑡
• It is assumed that any support resources that are required are
1
𝐴𝐴 𝑡 = 𝐴 𝑥 𝑑𝑥 available without any restriction
𝑡
0 • Denoted 𝐴𝑖
𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑡 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹
𝐴𝑖 = 𝐴 𝑡 =
𝑡 →∞ 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝐹 + 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝑅

1

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Achieved Availability
• “Probability that an item will be in a state of functioning when
used as specified taking into account the scheduled and
unscheduled maintenance”
• Any support resources needed are assumed to be available
instantaneously.
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀
𝐴𝑎 =
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀 + 𝐴𝑀𝑇
• MTBM is the mean time between maintenance
• AMT is active maintenance time.
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Failure Analysis
• Involves techniques for establishing the modes and causes of
failure and establishing the critical areas of the system
• Reliability allocation is a process by which the system’s
reliability requirements is divided into sub-system and
component reliability requirements.
• Techniques used in failure analysis include
• Failure Modes, Effects And Criticality Analysis (FMECA)
• Fault Tree Analysis
• Monte – Carlo Technique
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Failure Modes, Effects And Criticality
Analysis (FMECA)
• The three principal study areas in FMECA analysis are the;
• Failure Mode,
• Failure Effect
• Failure Criticality.
• Failure Mode Analysis lists all possible modes the failure would
occur which include the condition, the components involved, location
etc.
• The Failure Effect Analysis includes the study of the likely impact of
failure on the performance of the whole product and the process.
• The Criticality Analysis examines how critical a failure would be for
the operation and safe use of the product. The criticality might range
from minor failure through lowering of performance, shutdown of the
product, safety and environmental hazard to a catastrophic failure
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Operational Availability
• “Probability that the system will be in the state of functioning
when used as specified taking into account maintenance and
logistic delay times”
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀
𝐴𝑜 =
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀 + 𝐷𝑇
• MTBM is the mean time between maintenance (including both
scheduled and unscheduled maintenance)
• DT is the Down Time
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Failure Modes, Effects And Criticality
Analysis (FMECA)
• Systematic method for examining all modes through which a
failure can occur potential effects of these failures on the system
performance and their relative severity in terms of safety, extend
of damage, and impact on mission success
• Performed to identify reliability, maintenance, safety and
supportability problems resulting from the effects of a
product/process failure
• Establishes a detailed study of the product design, manufacturing
operation or distribution to determine which features are critical
to various modes of failure
• Best utilised during the early design and development phase of
new systems, and in the evaluation of existing system
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Failure Modes, Effects And Criticality
Analysis (FMECA) - Steps
1. Identification of the system requirements, by defining the
basic requirements for the system in terms of input criteria for
design.
• What is expected from the system in terms of operation and performance?
• What is the customer requirements with respect to reliability,
maintainability and supportability?
• How the system is used in terms of hours of operation/number of cycles
per day etc.
• What are the requirements for disposal after the system is withdrawn from
service.
2. Accomplish Functional Analysis
• Functional analysis is a systematic approach to system design and
development, which employs functional approach as a basis for
identification of design requirements for each hierarchical level of the
system.
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Failure Modes, Effects And Criticality
Analysis (FMECA) - Steps
• Functional analysis is accomplished through functional flow diagram that
portrays the system design requirements illustrating series and parallel
relationships and functional interfaces.
3. Accomplish Requirements Allocation - for a specified
requirement at system level, what should be specified at unit and
assembly level?
• System effectiveness factors such as reliability, maintainability and
supportability specified at system level are allocated to unit and assembly
level.
4. Identification of all possible failure modes for the system as well
as the subsystem, modules and components.
5. Determine cause of failures, which could be design and
manufacturing deficiency, ageing and wear-out, accidental damage,
transportation and handling, maintenance induced failures.
Failure Modes, Effects And Criticality
Analysis (FMECA) - Steps
6. Identify the effects of failure. Effect of failure might range from
catastrophic failure to minor performance degradation.
7. Assess the probability of failure. This can be achieved by analysing
the failure data and identifying the time-to-failure distribution.
8. Identify the criticality of failure. Failure criticality can be classified in
any one of four categories, depending upon the failure effects as
follows;
i. Minor Failure - Any failure that doesn’t have any noticeable affect on the
performance of the system.
ii. Major Failure -Any failure that will degrade the system performance beyond
an acceptable limit.
iii. Critical Failure - Any failure that would affect safety and degrade the system
beyond an acceptable limit.
iv. Catastrophic Failure - Any failure that could result in significant system
damage and may cause damage to property, serious injury or death.

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Failure Modes, Effects And Criticality

Analysis (FMECA) - Steps
9. Compute the Risk Priority Number (RPN) by multiplying
the probability of failure, the severity of the effects and the
likelihood of detecting a failure mode.
10. Initiate corrective action that will minimise the probability
of failure or effect of failure that show high RPN.

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Risk Priority Number Scales for Occurrence of Failure

• Plays a crucial role in selecting the most significant item that
will minimise the failure or effect of failure.
• RPN is calculated by multiplying the probability of failure, the
severity of the effects of failure and likelihood of failure
detection;
𝑅𝑃𝑁 = 𝐹𝑃 × 𝐹𝑆 × 𝐹𝐷
• Where,
• FP is the Failure probability,
• FS is the failure severity
• FD denotes the failure detection probability.

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Scales for Severity of Failure Scales for Detection of Failure

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Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)

• Deductive approach involving graphical enumeration and
analysis of the different ways in which a particular system
failure can occur, and the probability of its occurrence.
• Starts with a top-level event (failure) and works backward to
identify all the possible causes and therefore the origins of that
failure.
• During the very early stages of system design process, and in
the absence of information required to complete a FMECA,
fault tree analysis (FTA) is often conducted to gain insight into
critical aspects of selected design concepts.
• A separate fault tree is developed for every critical failure mode
or undesired Top-Level event.
• The following steps are used to carry out FTA
1. Identify the Top-level Event - It is necessary to be very
specific in defining the top-level event as a generic and non-
specific definition is likely to result in a broad based fault tree
which might be lacking in focus.
2. Develop the Initial Fault Tree - construct the initial causal
hierarchy in the form of a fault tree.
• Techniques such as Ishikawa’s cause and effect diagram can prove
beneficial.
• While developing the fault tree all hidden failures must be considered and
incorporated.
• For the sake of consistency, a standard set of symbols is used to develop
fault trees.

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Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)

3. Analyse the Fault Tree - The third step in FTA is to analyse
the initial fault tree developed. The important steps in
completing the analysis of a fault tree are
• Delineate the minimum cut-sets
• Determine the reliability of the top-level event
• Review analysis output

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