Reliability Evaluation of Engineering Systems Concepts and Techniques

In response to new developments in the field, practical teaching experience, and readers' suggestions, the authors of the warmly received Reliablity Evaluation of Engineering Systems have updated and extended the work-providing extended coverage of fault trees and a more complete examination of probability distribution, among other things-without disturbing the original's concept, structure, or style.

1 Introduction.- 2 Basic probability theory.- 3 Application of the binomial distribution.- 4 Network modelling and evaluation of simple systems.- 5 Network modelling and evaluation of complex systems.- 6 Probability distributions in reliability evaluation.- 7 System reliability evaluation using probability distributions.- 8 Discrete Markov chains.- 9 Continuous Markov processes.- 10 Frequency and duration techniques.- 11 Approximate system reliability evaluation.- 12 Systems with non-exponential distributions.- 13 Monte Carlo simulation.- 14 Epilogue.- Appendices.- Appendix 1—Rules of Boolean algebra.- Appendix 2—Probability distributions.- A2.1 The normal distribution function.- A2.2 Ordinate heights of the normal distribution.- A2.4 Kolmogorov-Smirnov critical values.- Appendix 3—Elementary matrix algebra.- A3.1 Concepts of matrices.- A3.2 Square matrix.- A3.3 Column matrix (or vector).- A3.4 Row matrix (or vector).- A3.5 Transposed matrix.- A3.6 Diagonal matrix.- A3.7 Identity (or unit) matrix.- A3.8 Symmetric matrix.- A3.9 Determinant of a matrix.- A3.10 Co-factors.- A3.11 Evaluation of determinants.- A3.12 Addition of matrices.- A3.13 Subtraction of matrices.- A3.14 Multiplication of matrices.- A3.15 Multiplication by a constant.- A3.16 Inverse of a matrix.- A3.17 Solution of simultaneous equations.- A3.18 Cramer’s rule for solving simultaneous equations.- Appendix 4—Differential equations and Laplace transforms.- A4.1 Differential equations.- A4.2 Laplace transforms.- A4.3 Solving differential equations using Laplace transforms.- Appendix 5—Confidence levels and limits.- A5.1 Introduction.- A5.2 Unavailability at selected confidence levels.- A5.3 Failure rate at selected confidence levels.- A5.4 Conclusions.- Problems.- References.- Solutions.