Practical Reliability Data Analysis for Non-Reliability Engineers

Book excerpt: This practical resource presents basic probabilistic and statistical methods or tools used to extract the information from reliability data to make sound decisions. It consolidates and condenses the reliability data analysis methods most often used in everyday practice into an easy-to-follow guide, while also providing a solid foundation from which to explore more complex methods if desired. The book provides mathematical and Excel spreadsheet formulas to estimate parameters and confidence bounds (uncertainty) for the most common probability distributions used in reliability analysis. Several other Excel tools are provided to aid users without access to expensive, dedicated, commercial tools. This book and tools were developed by the authors after many years of teaching the fundamentals of reliability data analysis to a broad range of technical and non-technical military and civilian personnel, making it useful for both novice and experienced engineers.