Original Date: 01/23/1995
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) developed a PC-based Reliability Analysis and Modeling Program to integrate data management, model development, model analysis (with uncertainties), and graphic output. This software allows engineers to design for reliability and analyze maintenance strategies.

The initial step in using the program is to develop a fault tree model of the component or system to be analyzed. This model is a tree that identifies all factors which could cause a system to fail, and probabilities are associated with each type of failure event. The software calculates mean time between failures, mean time to repair, and failure probability. Other software functions include calculation of reliability and maintenance costs, and identification of contributors to downtime, failure rate, and system unavailability. Example graphic outputs include contribution to system failure histograms, system availability graphs, and a text-based model of the fault tree.

The software has been used in a number of design-for-reliability and maintenance analysis cases. In a maintenance strategy analysis case, the software was used to re-evaluate and optimize the spares included in a repair kit. Benefits included a 58% improvement in mean time between failures, a 62% increase in uptime, and up to a 59% increase in throughput. The software has helped engineers make clear choices between design alternatives when considering reliability factors.

More than 250 alpha test copies of the software have been provided to industry partners along with a two-day training course on the software, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, and reliability modeling.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.