Reliability Analysis During the Design Phase

Reliability analysis during the design and development phase is necessary to detect and eliminate reliability weaknesses as early as possible, and to perform comparative studies with respect to reliability. Such analysis includes failure rate and failure mode investigations as well as the verification that appropriate guidelines for reliability have been applied. This chapter introduces the methods for failure rate and for failure mode analyses of complex electronic and electromechanical equipment and systems. Design guidelines for reliability, maintainability, and software quality are given in Sections 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3, respectively. For reliability tests one may refer to Chapters 3,7, and 8.