What is failure rate?
Q: What is failure rate?
A: Failure rate is the frequency with which an engineered system or component fails, usually expressed as a number of failures per time period.
Q: How is failure rate often written?
A: Failure rate is often written as the Greek letter λ (lambda).
Q: What does reliability theory measure?
A: Reliability theory measures the likelihood that a system or component will fail over a given period of time.
Q: How does failure rate increase over time?
A: Failure rate usually increases with time; for example, a car's failure rate in its fifth year of service may be many times greater than in its first year of service.
Q: What is Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)?
A: Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is closely related to failure rate and measures the average amount of time between two consecutive failures.
Q: In what areas are MTBF and failure rates important?
A: MTBF and failure rates are important in all aspects of high importance engineering design such as naval architecture, aerospace engineering, automotive design, etc., where minimizing and severely curtailing potential failures can be critical to safety. They also factor into insurance, business, and regulation practices as well as fundamental to design of safe systems throughout an economy.
