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System reliability and risk analysis
166
System Reliabifity and Risk Analysis, by Ernst G. Frankel, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 1984, 423 pp., ISBN 90-247-2895-9. This book was developed from lecture notes for use in a course in System Reliability for engineers concerned with physical systems at M.I.T. As an introduction to reliability analysis and risk assessment, it is intended to be used by professionals in engineering and other disciplines to improve the design, operation and risk assessment of systems of interest. The systems considered are almost exclusively mechanical systems with components whose reliability with time can be described by a Poisson law. Within this class of systems, the treatment is quite complete. It covers the basic reliability of series and parallel systems, failure mode, fault tree, common cause failure, maintained and non-maintained systems, system availability, on-line and off-line redundant systems, repair policies, optimum maintenance spare part provisions and effects of component interaction. As can be seen, the emphasis of this book is on system reliability--risk analysis plays only a very small part. Essentially, there is only one chapter on the analysis, perspectives, issues, and concerns of risk. A special feature of this book is the extensive use of Appendices to cover background material. For example, treatments of many of the foregoing subjects rely on the method of Markov processes which has been shown to be versatile and flexible and specially suited to system analysis involving maintenance and repair. A quite comprehensive coverage of stationary Markov processes is (i.e., theory and parameter estimation) is given in the Appendices, making the text self-sufficient as far as Markov process background is concerned. In spite of one chapter on the effects of component interaction, the book primarily deals with systems with independent components. For example, common cause effects such as environmental stress factors can be included in the component failure rate analysis, but no satisfactory treatment of system reliability is given to include the interdependency of the components other than a mention of conditional stochastic simulation techniques. In this regard, comparatively more progress has been made recently in the area of structural system reliability analysis, although bounding and other approximate methods are almost always required and mostly for time invariant systems. Throughout the book, illustrative examples are given although probably not as many as readers would like to see. As well, most of the examples end with results in analytical form only. Some numerical illustrations would probably convey more effectively the fine points in system reliability to the readers. Y.K. WEN
System Reliabifity and Risk Analysis, by Ernst G. Frankel, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 1984, 423 pp., ISBN 90-247-2895-9. This book was developed from lecture notes for use in a course in System Reliability for engineers concerned with physical systems at M.I.T. As an introduction to reliability analysis and risk assessment, it is intended to be used by professionals in engineering and other disciplines to improve the design, operation and risk assessment of systems of interest. The systems considered are almost exclusively mechanical systems with components whose reliability with time can be described by a Poisson law. Within this class of systems, the treatment is quite complete. It covers the basic reliability of series and parallel systems, failure mode, fault tree, common cause failure, maintained and non-maintained systems, system availability, on-line and off-line redundant systems, repair policies, optimum maintenance spare part provisions and effects of component interaction. As can be seen, the emphasis of this book is on system reliability--risk analysis plays only a very small part. Essentially, there is only one chapter on the analysis, perspectives, issues, and concerns of risk. A special feature of this book is the extensive use of Appendices to cover background material. For example, treatments of many of the foregoing subjects rely on the method of Markov processes which has been shown to be versatile and flexible and specially suited to system analysis involving maintenance and repair. A quite comprehensive coverage of stationary Markov processes is (i.e., theory and parameter estimation) is given in the Appendices, making the text self-sufficient as far as Markov process background is concerned. In spite of one chapter on the effects of component interaction, the book primarily deals with systems with independent components. For example, common cause effects such as environmental stress factors can be included in the component failure rate analysis, but no satisfactory treatment of system reliability is given to include the interdependency of the components other than a mention of conditional stochastic simulation techniques. In this regard, comparatively more progress has been made recently in the area of structural system reliability analysis, although bounding and other approximate methods are almost always required and mostly for time invariant systems. Throughout the book, illustrative examples are given although probably not as many as readers would like to see. As well, most of the examples end with results in analytical form only. Some numerical illustrations would probably convey more effectively the fine points in system reliability to the readers. Y.K. WEN