An Elementary Guide to Reliability

G W A Dummer was born in 1909, and his career included pioneering work in the field of radar. Working on radar reliability in the early fifties, he became the first person in the world to propose and pioneer the integrated circuit. In recognition of his distinguished career, he has received the USA Medal of Freedom and the MBE. R C Winton, MBE, worked for Mullard for 40 years, and played an important role on may committees such as the CBI Education and Training Committee. He was also a key figure at the IEEE, becoming Secretary of the UK and Republic of Ireland section. Mike Tooley is a technical author and consultant. He was formerly Vice Principal at Brooklands College in Surrey, England, where he was responsible for the delivery of learning to over 10,000 Further and Higher Education students increasingly by flexible, open and on-line distance learning. Mike is the well-known author of several popular engineering and related text books, including widely adopted course texts for BTEC, GCE A-level and GCSE qualifications in Engineering. Mike's hobbies include astronomy, amateur radio, aviation, computing and electronic circuit design and construction.

• The importance of reliabilityDefinitions of reliabilitySome simple statisticsHow reliability is calculatedThe effect of operating conditions and environmentsMechanical reliabilityInstallation and operabilityMaintainabilityReporting failuresDesign of fault tolerant systemsThe cost of reliabilitySome useful reliability definitions