Assessment of Reliability Function

In the previous section, the reliability of a system was expressed in precise probabilistic terms. However, no indication was given on how to find the appropriate reliability function for a real component or system. There are two different approaches to this problem. Either the reliability function can be estimated from curve-fitting the failure data obtained from extensive life testing or it may be hypothesized to be a certain parameterized function (as was done for the mechanical system discussed in the previous section) with the parameters estimated via statistical sampling techniques. Below will be given an example of each of these approaches. However, it must be realized that these examples just give a taste of the methodology available and that reference to one of the standard statistics tests should be made prior to any testing for reliability assessment.