ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE OF SCIENCE - CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY

MSc Examination 2003

GUN SYSTEMS DESIGN COURSE

MILITARY VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY COURSE
WEAPON AND VEHICLE SYSTEMS COURSE

RELIABILITY

Friday 4 April 2003: 0915 - 1055

(The first 10 minutes (0915 - 0925) are reading time only)

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES:

Attempt QUESTION 1 and TWO OTHER questions.

All questions carry the same number of marks.

Page 1 of 4
COMPULSORY

1 (a) Define the following terms:

(i) Reliability
(ii) Maintainability
(iii) Fault
(iv) Defect
(v) Failure.
[5]

(b) Describe the terms Mission Reliability and Mean Missions between
Failure (MMBF), for a military system. How can MMBF be used to
calculate a value for System Reliability for a standard Battlefield Day?
What does the calculated value of system reliability mean, in terms of
the overall relationship between system and component reliability for a
complex system.
[8]

(c) A Vehicle system has a required Mission Reliability of 80%. Calculate

the System reliability necessary to achieve this, for a 24-hour and a 48-
hour Battle Field Day.
[3]

(d) The system in part (c) has a required Availability of 90%, for a 48hr Battle
Field Day; calculate the Mean Repair time needed to achieve this.
Discuss the factors that make up the repair time, how would the figure
calculated relate to a repair time quoted by the vehicle manufacturer.
[4]

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2 The cumulative failure times for the first 8 failures during a series of
development trials were:

Failure No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Cumulative time 20 60 110 170 240 320 410 500
(hours)

(a) Produce a Duane plot of the data (on the log-log paper provided).
Estimate the growth factor , and from this plot the instantaneous MTBF
for the above failures.

How many more hours of testing are required to meet the required MTBF
level of 120 hours.
[10]

(b)Write down the three key questions which summarise the

approach to R&M taken in DEF Stan 00 – 40. Discuss the
role of an R&M Case in the achievement of these objects,
for the acquisition of an item of military equipment.
[10]

3 (a) Write down the relationship between reliability and time for a component
which can be modelled using a Weibull distribution, define any
parameters used
[3]

(b) Thirty components, which are believed to follow a Weibull

distribution, were tested in identical environments. The
first 10 failed at times:

n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
t 27 55 75 97 115 140 160 175 195 220

Plot this data on the Weibull paper provided and estimate

the parameters of the distribution.
[9]

(c) When electronic equipment has been observed to malfunction temporarily,

evidence of a physical failure can not always be found after such an event.
Describe two mechanisms that are commonly responsible for this kind of
transient malfunction in electronic equipment, and the general techniques
that are used to reduce the incidence of these events.
[8]

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4 Consider the following system description:

An engine cooling system uses a liquid coolant to maintain the engine

temperature below a specified limit. The liquid cooling element consists of a
pump to circulate the coolant, and a series of pipes enclosing the engine. This
will regulate engine temperature as long as the pump continues to operate, and
the level of coolant is maintained. Coolant may be lost due to leaks in the
piping. If engine temperature rises too high, a fan can be switched on to
provide additional cooling. The fan consists of an electric motor, mechanical
bearing and a set of blades. A heat senor attached to the engine is used to
switch in the fan when needed. For the purpose of this exercise, you can
assume that the fan blades and switch are sufficiently reliable as to not effect
the system reliability. You can also treat the liquid coolant pipes as a single
system component.

(a) Draw a Reliability bock diagram for the system described above.
[5]
(b) Assuming that all of the system components have a constant failure rate,
use the reliability data below to predict component reliability for the
system after 24 and 48 hours.
[3]

Component Pump Pipes Sensor Motor Bearing

MTBF (hrs) 100 300 500 600 200

(c) Using this data, calculate the overall system reliability after 24 & 48 hrs.
[4]

(d) Recalculate the reliability of the fan bearings after 24 & 48 hrs,
assuming that the component can be described by a Weibull distribution
with parameters given below:
Shaping Parameter () = 1.6
Scaling Parameter ()= 100 hrs
Use this value to recalculate the system reliability.
[5]

(e) Discuss the difference between the values of system reliability you
produced in parts (c) and (d). How would you expect this difference to
behave as the system continues to operate?
[3]

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