Reliability analysis for aircraft generators

EVER-INCREASING reliability wherever economically justifiable long has been an important objective for the designers of all electric equipment. Rough yardsticks- such as service life, maintenance costs, and complaint charges - have been used as measures of success in the attainment of this objective, but precise, quantitative indices of reliability have been lacking in many cases. This lack of emphasis on the quantitative evaluation of product reliability may have been justifiable in the past, but the situation is changing rapidly. In particular, components for aircraft and missile applications will be required more and more frequently to attain specified levels of reliability. This will be necessary because performance requirements in such applications require that components be pushed to the extremes of their capabilities. In addition, the dollar and time investment required to bring a modern, air-borne weapons systems to an operational status, coupled with the vital importance of such systems performing their assigned tasks, makes it imperative that all components not only meet specified performance standards, but that they do so reliably and consistently.