Reliability modeling of hydraulic system of drum shearer machine

The hydraulic system plays an important role in supplying power and its transition to other working parts of a coal shearer machine. In this paper, the reliability of the hydraulic system of a drum shearer was analyzed. A case study was done in the Tabas Coal Mine in Iran for failure data collection. The results of the statistical analysis show that the time between failures （TBF） data of this system followed the 3-parameters Weibull distribution. There is about a 54% chance that the hydraulic system of the drum shearer will not fail for the first 50 h of operation. The developed model shows that the reliability of the hydraulic system reduces to a zero value after approximately 1 650 hours of operation. The failure rate of this system decreases when time increases. Therefore, corrective maintenance （run-to-t^ailure） was selected as the best maintenance strategy for it.

Bayesian zero-failure reliability modeling and assessment method for multiple numerical control(NC) machine tools

A new problem that classical statistical methods are incapable of solving is reliability modeling and assessment when multiple numerical control machine tools(NCMTs) reveal zero failures after a reliability test. Thus, the zero-failure data form and corresponding Bayesian model are developed to solve the zero-failure problem of NCMTs, for which no previous suitable statistical model has been developed. An expert-judgment process that incorporates prior information is presented to solve the difficulty in obtaining reliable prior distributions of Weibull parameters. The equations for the posterior distribution of the parameter vector and the Markov chain Monte Carlo(MCMC) algorithm are derived to solve the difficulty of calculating high-dimensional integration and to obtain parameter estimators. The proposed method is applied to a real case; a corresponding programming code and trick are developed to implement an MCMC simulation in Win BUGS, and a mean time between failures(MTBF) of 1057.9 h is obtained. Given its ability to combine expert judgment, prior information, and data, the proposed reliability modeling and assessment method under the zero failure of NCMTs is validated.

Quantitative Metal Magnetic Memory Reliability Modeling for Welded Joints

Metal magnetic memory（MMM） testing has been widely used to detect welded joints. However, load levels, environmental magnetic field, and measurement noises make the MMM data dispersive and bring difficulty to quantitative evaluation. In order to promote the development of quantitative MMM reliability assessment, a new MMM model is presented for welded joints. Steel Q235 welded specimens are tested along the longitudinal and horizontal lines by TSC-2M-8 instrument in the tensile fatigue experiments. The X-ray testing is carried out synchronously to verify the MMM results. It is found that MMM testing can detect the hidden crack earlier than X-ray testing. Moreover, the MMM gradient vector sum K_（vs） is sensitive to the damage degree, especially at early and hidden damage stages. Considering the dispersion of MMM data, the K_（vs） statistical law is investigated, which shows that K_（vs） obeys Gaussian distribution. So K_（vs） is the suitable MMM parameter to establish reliability model of welded joints. At last, the original quantitative MMM reliability model is first presented based on the improved stress strength interference theory. It is shown that the reliability degree R gradually decreases with the decreasing of the residual life ratio T, and the maximal error between prediction reliability degree R_1 and verification reliability degree R_2 is 9.15%. This presented method provides a novel tool of reliability testing and evaluating in practical engineering for welded joints.

Web software reliability modeling with random impulsive shocks

As the web-server based business is rapidly developed and popularized, how to evaluate and improve the reliability of web-servers has been extremely important. Although a large num- ber of software reliability growth models （SRGMs）, including those combined with multiple change-points （CPs）, have been available, these conventional SRGMs cannot be directly applied to web soft- ware reliability analysis because of the complex web operational profile. To characterize the web operational profile precisely, it should be realized that the workload of a web server is normally non-homogeneous and often observed with the pattern of random impulsive shocks. A web software reliability model with random im- pulsive shocks and its statistical analysis method are developed. In the proposed model, the web server workload is characterized by a geometric Brownian motion process. Based on a real data set from IIS server logs of ICRMS website （www.icrms.cn）, the proposed model is demonstrated to be powerful for estimating impulsive shocks and web software reliability.

Physics of Failure(PoF)-Based Reliability and Performance Integrating Modeling Method and Software for Electromechanical Product

Electromechanical product's reliability is affected by uncertainty as well as performance degeneration during its life cycle.The present reliability and performance integrating modeling methods have obvious deficiencies in long period reliability analysis and assessment when applied to such system.A novel integrating modeling method based on physics of failure(PoF)and a simulation algorithm that considers uncertainty and degeneration are proposed in this paper to compute maintenance free operation period or maintenance free operation period survivability which is used to assess long period reliability of system.Furthermore,the concept design of this kind of software based on the above theory is also introduced.A case study of servo valve demonstrates the feasibility of the method and usability of the software in this research.

Discrete Software Reliability Growth Modeling for Errors of Different Severity Incorporating Change-point Concept

Several software reliability growth models （SRGM） have been developed to monitor the reliability growth during the testing phase of software development. In most of the existing research available in the literatures, it is considered that a similar testing effort is required on each debugging effort. However, in practice, different types of faults may require different amounts of testing efforts for their detection and removal. Consequently, faults are classified into three categories on the basis of severity： simple, hard and complex. This categorization may be extended to r type of faults on the basis of severity. Although some existing research in the literatures has incorporated this concept that fault removal rate （FRR） is different for different types of faults, they assume that the FRR remains constant during the overall testing period. On the contrary, it has been observed that as testing progresses, FRR changes due to changing testing strategy, skill, environment and personnel resources. In this paper, a general discrete SRGM is proposed for errors of different severity in software systems using the change-point concept. Then, the models are formulated for two particular environments. The models were validated on two real-life data sets. The results show better fit and wider applicability of the proposed models as to different types of failure datasets.

STOCHASTIC OBJECT-ORIENTED PETRI NETS (SOPNS) AND ITS APPLICATION IN MODELING OF MANUFACTURING SYSTEM RELIABILITY

Object-oriented Petri nets (OPNs) is extended into stochastic object-oriented Petri nets (SOPNs) by associating the OPN of an object with stochastic transitions and introducing stochastic places. The stochastic transition of the SOPNs of a production resources can be used to model its reliability, while the SOPN of a production resource can describe its performance with reliability considered. The SOPN model of a case production system is built to illustrate the relationship between the system's performances and the failures of individual production resources.

Reliability Growth Modeling and Optimal Release Policy Under Fuzzy Environment of an N-version Programming System Incorporating the Effect of Fault Removal Efficiency

Failure of a safety critical system can lead to big losses. Very high software reliability is required for automating the working of systems such as aircraft controller and nuclear reactor controller software systems. Fault-tolerant softwares are used to increase the overall reliability of software systems. Fault tolerance is achieved using the fault-tolerant schemes such as fault recovery （recovery block scheme）, fault masking （N-version programming （NVP）） or a combination of both （Hybrid scheme）. These softwares incorporate the ability of system survival even on a failure. Many researchers in the field of software engineering have done excellent work to study the reliability of fault-tolerant systems. Most of them consider the stable system reliability. Few attempts have been made in reliability modeling to study the reliability growth for an NVP system. Recently, a model was proposed to analyze the reliability growth of an NVP system incorporating the effect of fault removal efficiency. In this model, a proportion of the number of failures is assumed to be a measure of fault generation while an appropriate measure of fault generation should be the proportion of faults removed. In this paper, we first propose a testing efficiency model incorporating the effect of imperfect fault debugging and error generation. Using this model, a software reliability growth model （SRGM） is developed to model the reliability growth of an NVP system. The proposed model is useful for practical applications and can provide the measures of debugging effectiveness and additional workload or skilled professional required. It is very important for a developer to determine the optimal release time of the software to improve its performance in terms of competition and cost. In this paper, we also formulate the optimal software release time problem for a 3VP system under fuzzy environment and discuss a the fuzzy optimization technique for solving the problem with a numerical illustration.

The Reliability Design of a Kind of Multioption Fuze

On the basis of analysing the reliability problems existing in the general design of a kind of multioption fuze. some problems such as the reliability model. the reliability distribution of the electronic part of the fuze are discussed. For a particular multioption fuze, then.according to three different setting ways. the calculating methods of its operating reliability in six different operating states are given.

Assessment and Prediction of Software Reliability in Mobile Applications

Software reliability is an important quality attribute, and software reliability models are frequently used to measure and predict software maturity. The nature of mobile environments differs from that of PC and server environments due to many factors, such as the network, energy, battery, and compatibility. Evaluating and predicting mobile application reliability are real challenges because of the diversity of the mobile environments in which the applications are used, and the lack of publicly available defect data. In addition, bug reports are optionally submitted by end-users. In this paper, we propose assessing and predicting the reliability of a mobile application using known software reliability growth models (SRGMs). Four software reliability models are used to evaluate the reliability of an open-source mobile application through analyzing bug reports. Our experiment proves it is possible to use SRGMs with defect data acquired from bug reports to assess and predict the software reliability in mobile applications. The results of our work enable software developers and testers to assess and predict the reliability of mobile software applications.

System reliability evaluation method considering physical dependency with FMT and BDD analytical algorithm

Recently, the physics-of-failure(PoF) method has been more and more popular in engineering to understand the failure mechanisms(FMs) of products.However, due to the lack of system modeling methods and problem-solving algorithms,the information of FMs cannot be used to evaluate system reliability.This paper presents a system reliability evaluation method with failure mechanism tree(FMT) considering physical dependency(PDEP) such as competition, trigger, acceleration, inhibition, damage accumulation, and parameter combination.And the binary decision diagram(BDD) analytical algorithm is developed to establish a system reliability model.The operation rules of ite operators for generating BDD are discussed.The flow chart of system reliability evaluation method based on FMT and BDD is proposed.The proposed method is applied in the case of an electronic controller drive unit.Results show that the method is effective to evaluate system reliability from the perspective of FM.

Reliability Modelling and Analysis of Satellite Propulsion System Based on Reliability Block Diagram and Extended Object-Oriented Petri Net

Modern satellite propulsion systems are generally designed to fulfill multiphase-missions.Traditional reliability modelling methods have problems of inadequate depict capacity considering complex systems such as satellite propulsion system.An extended object-oriented Petri net(EOOPN)method was proposed to facilitate the reliability modelling of satellite propulsion system in the paper.The proposed method was specified for modelling of phased mission system,and it could be implemented by generating combination of Petri net(PN)principles and object-oriented(OO)programming.The effectiveness of the proposed method was demonstrated through the reliability modelling of a satellite propulsion system with EOOPN.The major advantage of the proposed method is that the dimension of net model can be reduced significantly,and phased mission system at system,phase,or component levels can be respectively depicted.Furthermore,the state-space explosion problem is solved by the proposed EOOPN model efficiently.

Bayesian Method Reliability of Flight Simulator

This paper introduces the basic viewpoints and characteristics of Bayesian statistics. Which provides a theoretical basis for solving the problem of small sample of flight simulator using Bayesian method. A series of formulas were derived to establish the Bayesian reliability modeling and evaluation model for flight simulation equipment. The two key problems of Bayesian method were pointed out as follows： obtaining the prior distribution of WeibuU parameter, calculating the parameter a posterior distribution and parameter estimation without analytic solution, and proposing the corresponding solution scheme.

Transformer real-time reliability model based on operating conditions

Operational reliability evaluation theory reflects real-time reliability level of power system. The component failure rate varies with operating conditions. The impact of real-time operating conditions such as ambient temperature and transformer MVA (megavolt-ampere) loading on transformer insulation life is studied in this paper. The formula of transformer failure rate based on the winding hottest-spot temperature (HST) is given. Thus the real-time reliability model of transformer based on oper- ating conditions is presented. The work is illustrated using the 1979 IEEE Reliability Test System. The changes of operating conditions are simulated by using hourly load curve and temperature curve, so the curves of real-time reliability indices are ob- tained by using operational reliability evaluation.

A Reliability Allocation Method of CNC Lathes Based on Copula Failure Correlation Model

The current research of reliability allocation of CNC lathes always treat CNC lathes as independent series systems. However, CNC lathes are complex systems in the actual situation. Failure correlation is rarely considered when reliabil?ity allocation is conducted. In this paper, drawbacks of reliability model based on failure independence assumption are illustrated, after which, reliability model of CNC lathes considering failure correlation of subsystems is established based on Copula theory, which is an improvement of traditional reliability model of series systems. As the failure time of CNC lathes often obeys Weibull or exponential distribution, Gumbel Copula is selected to build correlation model. After that, a reliability allocation method considering failure correlation is analyzed based on the model established before. Reliability goal is set first and then failure rates are allocated to subsystems according to the allocation vector through solving the correlation model. Reliability allocation is conducted for t = 1. A real case of a CNC lathe and a numerical case are presented together to illustrate the advantages of the reliability model established consider?ing failure correlation and the corresponding allocation method. It shows that the model accords to facts and real working condition more, and failure rates allocated to all the subsystems are increased to some extent. This research proposes a reliability allocation method which takes failure correlation among subsystems of CNC lathes into consid?eration, and costs for design and manufacture could be decreased.

Discrete Stress-strength Interference Model of Reliability Analysis under Multi-operating Conditions

The conventional stress-strength interference（SSI） model is a basic model for reliability analysis of mechanical components. In this model, the component reliability is defined as the probability of the strength being larger than the stress, where the component stress is generally represented by a single random variable（RV）. But for a component under multi-operating conditions, its reliability can not be calculated directly by using the SSI model. The problem arises from that the stress on a component under multi-operating conditions can not be described by a single RV properly. Current research concerning the SSI model mainly focuses on the calculation of the static or dynamic reliability of the component under single operation condition. To evaluate the component reliability under multi-operating conditions, this paper uses multiple discrete RVs based on the actual stress range of the component firstly. These discrete RVs have identical possible values and different corresponding probability value, which are used to represent the multi-operating conditions of the component. Then the component reliability under each operating condition is calculated, respectively, by employing the discrete SSI model and the universal generating function technique, and from this the discrete SSI model under multi-operating conditions is proposed. Finally the proposed model is applied to evaluate the reliability of a transmission component of the decelerator installed in an aeroengine. The reliability of this component during taking-off, cruising and landing phases of an aircraft are calculated, respectively. With this model, a basic method for reliability analysis of the component under complex load condition is provided, and the application range of the conventional SSI model is extended.

Incorporating S-shaped testing-effort functions into NHPP software reliability model with imperfect debugging

Testing-effort（TE） and imperfect debugging（ID） in the reliability modeling process may further improve the fitting and prediction results of software reliability growth models（SRGMs）. For describing the S-shaped varying trend of TE increasing rate more accurately, first, two S-shaped testing-effort functions（TEFs）, i.e.,delayed S-shaped TEF（DS-TEF） and inflected S-shaped TEF（IS-TEF）, are proposed. Then these two TEFs are incorporated into various types（exponential-type, delayed S-shaped and inflected S-shaped） of non-homogeneous Poisson process（NHPP）SRGMs with two forms of ID respectively for obtaining a series of new NHPP SRGMs which consider S-shaped TEFs as well as ID. Finally these new SRGMs and several comparison NHPP SRGMs are applied into four real failure data-sets respectively for investigating the fitting and prediction power of these new SRGMs.The experimental results show that：（i） the proposed IS-TEF is more suitable and flexible for describing the consumption of TE than the previous TEFs;（ii） incorporating TEFs into the inflected S-shaped NHPP SRGM may be more effective and appropriate compared with the exponential-type and the delayed S-shaped NHPP SRGMs;（iii） the inflected S-shaped NHPP SRGM considering both IS-TEF and ID yields the most accurate fitting and prediction results than the other comparison NHPP SRGMs.

Reliability model of organization management chain of South-to-North Water Diversion Project during construction period

In order to analyze the indispensability of the organization management chain of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project （SNWDP）, two basic forms （series connection state and mixed state of both series connection and parallel connection） of the organization management chain can be abstracted. The indispensability of each form has been studied and is described in this paper. Through analysis of the reliability of the two basic forms, reliability models of the organization management chain in the series connection state and the mixed state of both series connection and parallel connection have been set up.

SOFTWARE RELIABILITY MODEL FOR COMPONENT INTERACTION MODE

With the rapid progress of component technology,the software development methodology of gathering a large number of components for designing complex software systems has matured.But,how to assess the application reliability accurately with the information of system architecture and the components reliabilities together has become a knotty problem.In this paper,the defects in formal description of software architecture and the limitations in existed model assumptions are both analyzed.Moreover,a new software reliability model called Component Interaction Mode(CIM) is proposed.With this model,the problem for existed component-based software reliability analysis models that cannot deal with the cases of component interaction with non-failure independent and non-random control transition is resolved.At last,the practice examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of this model.

Hybrid reliability model for fatigue reliability analysis of steel bridges

A kind of hybrid reliability model is presented to solve the fatigue reliability problems of steel bridges. The cumulative damage model is one kind of the models used in fatigue reliability analysis. The parameter characteristics of the model can be described as probabilistic and interval. The two-stage hybrid reliability model is given with a theoretical foundation and a solving algorithm to solve the hybrid reliability problems. The theoretical foundation is established by the consistency relationships of interval reliability model and probability reliability model with normally distributed variables in theory. The solving process is combined with the definition of interval reliability index and the probabilistic algorithm. With the consideration of the parameter characteristics of the S-N curve, the cumulative damage model with hybrid variables is given based on the standards from different countries. Lastly, a case of steel structure in the Neville Island Bridge is analyzed to verify the applicability of the hybrid reliability model in fatigue reliability analysis based on the AASHTO.