In this paper, we introduce a methodology for the dependability analysis of new automotive safety-relevant systems. With the introduction of safety-relevant electronic systems in cars, it is necessary to carry out a thorough dependability analysis of those systems to fully understand and quantify the failure mechanisms in order to improve the design. Several system level FMEAs are used to ident...

Markovian models and their analysis techniques accomplish an important function in evaluating reliability/ availability in complex engineering systems. Markovian modeling is essentially associated with constant rate of transition from one state to another state of the system and is strictly applicable to exponential distributions. When a more general form for the distribution of a system compon...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the time-invariant reliability of reinforced concrete beams designed under the provisions of the ACI Building Code. A wide range of practical design situations is considered. The beams are subjected to bending, shear, and torsion. The interaction between shear and torsion is considered via an elliptical failure surface defined in the shear-torsion stress...

The focus of this panel is the trade-off between excessive testing and acceptable shipped quality levels. How much testing is enough? We all strive to ship our customers high quality product, or at least product that meets our customers’ quality expectations. Often improvements in shipped quality levels can be made by plugging obvious holes in a device’s test suite, sometimes simply by increasi...

This paper proposes an alternative mechanism of pile failure in liquefiable deposits during earthquakes. This failure mechanism, based on pile buckling, is formulated by back-analysing 14 case histories of pile foundation performance during earthquakes and verified using dynamic centrifuge tests. A new parameter, the slenderness ratio of a pile, is introduced to classify pile performance in liq...

0026-2714/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. A doi:10.1016/j.microrel.2011.08.017 ⇑ Corresponding author at: STMicroelectronics, 16 7155, 37071 Tours Cedex 2, France. Tel.: +33 (0)2 47 01 34. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Jacqu In this paper, a physical model is proposed to estimate the TRIAC solder joint fatigue during power cycling. The lifetime prediction is based on the fo...

This paper aims at characteristic failure mechanisms of cohesive frictional materials at two levels of observation: (a) at the macroscale of continuum elastoplasticity, and (b) at the microscale of active microplanes with arbitrary orientation. Thereby, the criteria for the loss of uniqueness and the loss of ellipticity will be discussed for a macroscopic as well as a microplane-based anisotrop...

Our research has shown that interferometric SAR techniques can be used to monitor deformation at landslides and volcanoes under specific conditions. Special filtered interferograms are being used to reduce speckle and minimize errors created by vegetation. InSAR images were used to monitor current post slide motion along existing fault lines at the Frank Slide a 30 x 10 m rock avalanche, in the...

Probabilistic system-reliability methods have the potential to assist designers in better understanding the ultimate global behavior of bridges, thus leading to more economical, rational, and reliable structures. Nonetheless, these techniques are not currently broadly used in North American bridge engineering practice. Using a sample cable-stayed bridge design, a study is conducted to assess th...

One of the most important aspects of photovoltaic modules is reliability for future uses, that is, a certain module will last certain number of years in use (generally 30 or 35 years). Reliability yields from excellent qualification tests on photovoltaic (PV) modules. Testing for reliability identifies unknown failure mechanisms and whether modules are susceptible to known failure mechanisms. T...