Reliability Predictions and Failure Analysis

Reliability analyses based on prediction methods are very common in the military field, as they were initially defined by industry standards initially born in the Defense industry branch.
These are techniques based on statistical data that, based on the modeling of the system (through appropriate functional block diagrams of the system and its sub-parts identified by the product tree) determine the so-called “failure rates”, i.e. a quantitative assessment of how much the component, subsystem, system, are able to operate without “failures” or “malfunctions”.

From here, with Failure Analysis techniques, the system is analyzed to be able to determine the possible causes and effects of a malfunction or failure of one of its components or one of its parts, understanding the impacts on the ability to operate the entire system (“critical” or “non-critical” failures), taking into account the probability that the failure will occur (derived from the previous reliability prediction).

The most common examples of Failure Analysis techniques: