TABLE OF CONTENTS There are many collections of failure rate data compiled by defence, telecommunications, process industries, oil and gas and other organizations. Some are published data Handbooks such as:
US MIL HANDBOOK 217 (Electronics)
CNET (French PTT) Data
HRD (Electronics, British Telecom)
RADC Non-Electronic Parts Handbook NPRD
OREDA (Offshore data)
FARADIP.THREE (Data ranges)
Some are data banks which are accessible by virtue of membership or fee such as:
SRD (Systems Reliability Department of UKAEA) Data Bank
Technis [the author] (Tonbridge)
Some are in-house data collections which are not generally available. These occur in:
Large industrial manufacturers
Public utilities
These data collection activities were at their peak in the 1980s but, sadly, they declined during the 1990s and the majority of published sources have not been updated since that time.
Failure data are usually, unless otherwise specified, taken to refer to random failures (i.e. constant failure rates). It is important to read, carefully, any covering notes since, for a given temperature and environment, a stated component, despite the same description, may exhibit a wide range of failure rates because:
Some failure rate data include items replaced during preventive maintenance whereas others do not. These items should, ideally, be excluded from the data but, in practice, it is not always possible to identify them. This can affect rates by an order of magnitude.
Failure rates are...
