engineering
Reliability is Not a Constant
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Often as a reliability engineer, or anyone responsible for researching the reliability of an item, or calculating it, you will find oversimplified published data giving you the impression that reliability is an unchanging physical property like mass or volume, something intrinsic to the materials included in it. This is actually the common sense approach; we […]
Deep Water Offshore Wind Energy
Monday, June 9th, 2008Drilling for Oil is not the only Potential Energy Producing Activity Offshore
While “green” or renewable energy technologies are often seen as the rival against traditional fossil fuel technologies in some kind of epic battle, they can actually sometimes enhance and support each other. Recent news from wind power companies suggests that they may be able […]
Review - Modern Compressible Flow with Historical Perspective
Thursday, June 5th, 2008Modern Compressible Flow with Historical Perspective by John D. Anderson provides an excellent resource for studies in advanced fluid mechanics. In a field where many texts provide useful content in an entirely unmemorable fashion, this text is an exception. Theory, History, Applications, and other interesting information and stories make this book a beneficial addition to […]
Zero-Failure Reliability Testing
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008So, you’ve got a design that you want to prove is better than the existing design from your own or another company. What’s the most efficient, fastest way to get to that answer with a very small sample size? Whle there may be several options you have, including accelerated testing, they each can have their […]
Space Solar Power, The Next Leapfrog Technology ?
Monday, June 2nd, 2008Recently, this article on CNN.com revisits the idea of collecting solar power in space and beaming it down to Earth. With such a large world demand for energy expected in the next 20 to 50 years, and declining costs for access to space, could this be the time for this science fiction technology to become […]
Review - Microscale Heat Transfer - Fundamentals and Applications
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008This review concerns a niche of mechanical engineering that involves heat transfer at very small scales. Understanding this phenomenon, which is considerably different from typical heat transfer and thermodynamics experienced in the everyday world, is critical to the advancement of nanotechnological machines and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
CAFE Standards and Speed Limits, Round 2
Thursday, May 15th, 2008In this earlier article on the new CAFE standards, I found that depending on the assumptions made for the number of future miles driven, restricting the speed limit to 55 miles per hour would be a more cost effective and more energy efficient solution than changing the CAFE standard. That analysis only considered the total […]
Calculating Reliability with Partial Test Results
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008Getting answers before you are finished. Why are people always so impatient? Why can’t they just wait until testing is complete before they ask for answers? I suppose it is just human nature, as I have heard that question any time I have been involved in reliability testing programs. And, although we would know much […]
Defining Sustainable Technology
Friday, May 9th, 2008Sustainable technology is an idea that may produce a new level of real progress around the world. But often today, the term is more of a marketing badge that may or may not prove to be true when put to the test. I have written before about sustainable technology and some of the problems with […]
Convert B10 or L10 Bearing Life to MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)
Thursday, May 8th, 2008As a reliability analyst, sometimes none of your data matches the form you are interested in. It all comes in different collections of units, statistical distribution parameters, failure rates, environments, MTBF, MTTF, and on and on. In this article, let’s consider one common conversion for which my research found too little information available […]
True Progress Releases Free Weibull Reliability Calculator
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008True-Progress.com has released its Free Weibull Reliability Calculator version 1.0.2.
You can download this tool by following this link.
This simple calculator utilizes the Weibull distribution to generate reliability data for your system
The Fallacy of Human Error
Monday, May 5th, 2008Why pilots (and humans in general) get a bad rap during accident investigations.
In my earlier article on root cause analysis, I mentioned that every cause present in a given situation can be considered equally responsible for the occurrence of the failure in question. Many times, however, investigations end up ascribing the fault of the entire […]
Hidden Technology Subsidies and System Design Bias
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008When Subsidies are Hard to See
When we think of our governments subsidizing a particular industry we usually envision a nice big check sent to them every year to the tune of millions of dollars from tax revenues. Sometimes, instead, it is that industry that is free from a particular tax that most others have […]
A Way Out of the Politics of Climate Change, Part 5
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008Stay Focused on the Big picture
This is the fifth article in a five part series.
In this series, we have been outlining a evidence-based, constructive method to address the issue of climate change. While using this method doesn’t eliminate any disputes, it does change them from one of attacking philosophies, which are not easily changed, […]
Review - IRCMS (Integrated Reliability Centered Maintenance System) by NAVAIR
Monday, April 28th, 2008This review refers to version 6.3 of IRCMS by NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command).
IRCMS 6.3 provides users with an aid to perform Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis. RCM is a process by which the life cycle costs of performing maintenance on a system are compared to the consequences of not performing maintenance as well […]
A Way Out of the Politics of Climate Change, Part 3
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008Evaluating Likelihood and Addressing Uncertainty when Applying Solutions
This is the third article in a five part series.
In the first two articles in this series we looked at identifying a problem and a functional understanding of that problem and then at determining all the causes of that problem. Now, we are going to […]
A Way Out of the Politics of Climate Change, Part 2
Monday, April 21st, 2008A Root Cause Analysis on the “Failure Mode” of Changing (Increasing or Decreasing) Temperatures.
This is the second article of a five part series.
In the last article I outlined our functional model of the Earth. According to that model to explain why the current temperature of earth is the way it is, we have a primary […]
The Usefulness of Risk Assessment
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008What is Risk Assessment; how do we already use it; and how do we misuse it?
If our goal is to achieve progress, one of the ways we can determine that progress has been made is by a reduction in the quantity and severity of problems we face. Another way, would be to determine the quantity […]
CAFE Vehicle Standards Compared to Speed Limits
Monday, April 14th, 2008What would more effectively reduce pollution from small vehicles?
Recently, there was a significant political argument in the United States about the costs and benefits of increasing the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Increased efficiency, the argument went, would reduce the consumption of fuel, and therefore help restrain fuel prices, also reducing pollution from vehicles […]
Root Cause Analysis and True Solutions
Saturday, April 12th, 2008In Search of The Best Answer, Not a Better Answer
Whenever there is a major man-made disaster or some kind of accident, responsible officials usually convene a team that conducts an investigation. The results of that investigation will usually identify a “root cause” and several “contributing causes”. If it was a plane crash, the team will […]
Landfills, Mines of the Future ?
Friday, April 11th, 2008So, how long will it be before our trash is more valuable than existing iron mines?
The municipal waste collection system in the United States is very efficient at removing whatever materials we place in our trash bag. So much so, that we normally find it difficult to imagine the scale of the operation, and especially […]