Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives To develop skills and understanding relating to the development of optimum levels of reliability for complex and advanced engineering systems.
Synopsis The economics of reliability; cost-benefit analysis and lifecycle costing, catastrophic failure. Configuration improvement; fault tree analysis, failure mode and effect analysis, reliability mathematics as the basis of the design function. The physics of failure approach; failure mechanisms, environmental engineering and life testing. Contractual reliability; planning, organising and controlling a program through its definition, design and development, production and operational stages. Testing for reliability; prediction, apportionment and statistical inference with constant and variable time schedules. Maintenance, monitoring and maintainability; data retrieval, data banks and further reliability improvement via the use of engineering statistics.
Assessment Examination (3 hours): 70% + Mid-semester tests and assignments: 30%