3 Semester Credit Hours

Course Description
In a case-based approach, students will learn the classical techniques and concepts needed for evaluating the long-term and short-term reliability of engineering systems. Students also will explore strategies for integrating, testing, and validating products and systems. This course provides in-depth coverage of tasks, processes, methods, and techniques for achieving, testing, and maintaining the required level of system reliability considering operational performance, customer satisfaction, and affordability. Specific topics include integration of established system requirements, establishing system reliability requirements, reliability program planning, system reliability modeling and analysis, system reliability design guidelines and analysis, system reliability test and evaluation, verification and validation of a system, and the maintenance of inherent system reliability during production and operation.

Prerequisites

• Knowledge of calculus and engineering mathematics.
• Knowledge of probability and statistics.
• Comfortable with spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel.
  

Course Objectives

• From this case-based course, the student will develop the ability to:
• Review and evaluate technical cases of applying the theory and methods of testing and reliability engineering.
• Identify and assimilate open-source technical materials that are needed to achieve understanding of a case.
• Describe the goals, objectives, background, assumptions, methods, results, interpretation, and conclusions of a case.
• Design, perform, and interpret sensitivity and impact analyses to a case.
• Select and apply testing and reliability methods that would be beneficial to follow-up and enhance a case.
• Describe the relevance and importance of a case to its associated systems engineering or business enterprise.

 
Course Topics

The following topics will be covered in the order given.

1. Systems Testing and Reliability
2. Case Studies in Reliability and Maintenance
3. Space Interferometer Reliability-Based Design Evaluation
4. Confidence Intervals for Hardware Reliability Predictions
5. Allocation of Dependability Requirements in Power Plant Design
6. The Determination of the Design Strength of Granite Used as External Cladding for Buildings
7. Use of Sensitivity Analysis to Assess the Effect of Model Uncertainty in Analyzing Accelerated Life Test Data
8. Virtual Qualification of Electronic Hardware
9. Development of a Moisture Soak Model for Surface-Mounted Devices
10. Construction of Reliable Software in Resource-Constrained Environment
11. Modeling and Analysis of Software System Reliability
12. Information Fusion for Damage Prediction
13. Design Principles Part II
14. Use of Truncated Regression Methods to Estimate the Shelf Life of a Product from Incomplete Historical Data
15. Determining Software Quality Using COQUALMO
16. Use of Extreme Values in Reliability Assessment Composite Materials
17. Expert Judgment in the Uncertainty Analysis of Dike Ring Failure Frequency
18. Component Reliability, Replacement, and Cost Analysis with Incomplete Failure Data
19. Maintainability and Maintenance - A Case Study on Mission Critical Aircraft and Engine Components
20. Photocopier Reliability Modeling Using Evolutionary Algorithms
21. Reliability Modeling for Underground Gas Pipelines
22. RCM Approach to Maintaining a Nuclear Power Plant
23. Case Experience Comparing the RCM Approach to Plant Maintenance with a Modeling Approach
24. Mean Residual Life and Optimal Operating Conditions for Industrial Furnace Tubes
25. Optimization of Dragline Load
26. Ford's Reliability Improvement Process - A Case Study on Automotive Wheel Bearings
27. Reliability of Oil Seal for Transaxle - A Science SQC Approach at Toyota
28. Warranty Data Analysis for Assessing Product Reliability
29. Reliability and Warrantly Analysis of a Motorcycle Based on Claims Data
30. Review
31. Systems Testing and Reliability in your Professional Career

Technical Requirements

There are no additional software or application requirements for this course. You will be required to have Windows Media Player to view the lectures. For the standard technical requirements, please go to the link below: http://www.waldenu.edu/c/Files/DocsGeneral/Getting_Started_Guide.pdf

Textbooks

Required: Blischke, W.R., & Murthy, D.N. Prabhakar (2003). Case Studies in Reliability and Maintenance. New York: Wiley. Required

Optional: Blischke, W.R., & Murthy, D.N.P. (2000). Reliability: Modeling, Prediction, and Optimization. New York: Wiley. Not required.

Disclaimer: The coure syllabus may differ slightly from this course. Descriptions will be proviced in your online course. Textbook information is provided only to give more information about the course.  Do Not use this information to purchase a textbook.  Up-to-date information will be provided when you register.