Title: Targeted testing methods for reliability validation of components and systems

Authors: Prabhu Soundappan, Efstratios Nikolaidis, Balaji Dheenadayalan

Addresses: Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606, USA. ' Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606, USA. ' Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606, USA

Abstract: Methods for designing targeted tests for reliability validation of structures obtained from reliability-based design are presented. These methods optimise the test parameters to minimise the variance in the estimated reliability (or equivalently the failure probability) estimated from the tests. The tests are designed using information from analytical models used in reliability-based design. Both analytical tests, in which very detailed models are used as reference, and physical tests can be designed using the methods presented. The methods are demonstrated on examples and their robustness to errors in the analytical models used to design the tests is assessed.

Keywords: reliability validation; test parameters; analytical models; component reliability; system reliability; reliability-based design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2010.029563

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2010 Vol.4 No.1, pp.16 - 45

Published online: 30 Nov 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article