Reliability assessment considering dependent competing failure process and shifting-threshold

The reliability assessment problem for products subject to degradation and random shocks is investigated. Two kinds of probabilistic models are constructed, in which the dependent competing failure process is considered. First, based on the assumption of cumulative shock, the probabilistic models for hard failure and soft failure are built respectively. On this basis, the dependent competing failure model involving degradation and shock processes is established. Furthermore, the situation of the shifting-threshold is also considered, in which the hard failure threshold value decreases to a lower level after the arrival of a certain number of shocks. A case study of fatigue crack growth is given to illustrate the proposed models. Numerical results show that shock has a significant effect on the failure process; meanwhile, the effect will be magnified when the value of the hard threshold shifts to a lower level.

Reliability modeling of mutual DCFP considering failure physical dependency

Degradation and overstress failures occur in many electronic systems in which the operation load and environmental conditions are complex.The dependency of them called dependent competing failure process(DCFP),has been widely studied.Electronic system may experience mutual effects of degradation and shocks,they are considered to be interdependent.Both the degradation and the shock processes will decrease the limit of system and cause cumulative effect.Finally,the competition of hard and soft failure will cause the system failure.Based on the failure mechanism accumulation theory,this paper constructs the shock-degradation acceleration and the threshold descent model,and a system reliability model established by using these two models.The mutually DCFP effect of electronic system interaction has been decomposed into physical correlation of failure,including acceleration,accumulation and competition.As a case,a reliability of electronic system in aeronautical system has been analyzed with the proposed method.The method proposed is based on failure physical evaluation,and could provide important reference for quantitative evaluation and design improvement of the newly designed system in case of data deficiency.

A compositional method to model dependent failure behavior based on PoF models

In this paper, a new method is developed to model dependent failure behavior among failure mechanisms. Unlike the existing methods, the developed method models the root cause of the dependency explicitly, so that a deterministic model, rather than a probabilistic one, can be established. Three steps comprise the developed method. First, physics-of-failure（PoF） models are utilized to model each failure mechanism. Then, interactions among failure mechanisms are modeled as a combination of three basic relations, competition, superposition and coupling. This is the reason why the method is referred to as ＂compositional method＂. Finally, the PoF models and the interaction model are combined to develop a deterministic model of the dependent failure behavior. As a demonstration, the method is applied on an actual spool and the developed failure behavior model is validated by a wear test. The result demonstrates that the compositional method is an effective way to model dependent failure behavior.