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3.2.1 Failure Modes And Two Types Of Robustness
Author(s) -
Clausing Don,
Frey Daniel D.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2004.tb00511.x
Subject(s) - robustness (evolution) , failure mode and effects analysis , catastrophic failure , computer science , mistake , control theory (sociology) , voltmeter , reliability engineering , voltage , engineering , physics , electrical engineering , artificial intelligence , biochemistry , chemistry , control (management) , political science , law , gene , thermodynamics
Reliability is one of the most important characteristics of a system. To be reliable a system must be robust and mistake free. Robustness is achieved by avoiding failure modes, even in the presence of noises that strongly tend to excite the failure modes. Basic systems engineering primarily considers two‐sided failure modes, such as excessive deviation from the correct voltage reading for a voltmeter, which can be either positive or negative; thus the name two sided. In this paper we focus attention on one‐sided failure modes, which occur only on one side of the distribution for the exciting noise(s). A single one‐sided failure mode is easy to avoid. However, in complex systems it is common for two or more one‐sided failure modes to be affected by one critical design parameter in such a way that it is challenging to avoid both failure modes. A path to a reliable system is to open an operating window between the two one‐sided failure modes.