Reliability of Engineering Systems and Technological Risks

1Reliability of Engineering Systems

1.1. Basic notions and characteristics of reliability

1.1.1. Basic notions

The notions described below correspond to the usual terminology used in reliability theory and most of the literature sources on reliability. Reliability theory deals with the following basic notions.

An object in reliability theory means a unit (an element or article), an apparatus, an engineering product and any system or its part at all, considering from the point of view of their reliability. Furthermore, the term unit is used for simple objects, which is considered a single entity. For complex objects, the term system is used and the term element means the minimal component of a system.

An exploitation of an object (unit or system) means the collection of all its existence phases (creation, transportation, storage, using, maintenance and repair).

Reliability of an object is its complex property, consisting of its possibility to fulfill assign to it functions under given exploitation conditions¹.

According to the definition of Gnedenko [GNE 65], reliability theory is a scientific discipline about the requirements that should be used for projecting, producing, testing and exploitation of an object in order to get the maximal effect from its use. Reliability theory deals with such notions as: reliability, failure (breakdown), longevity, repair, repair-ability, etc.

Reliability means the possibility of an object to maintain its workability during a given time period ...