General Procedure of Failure Analysis: Introduction

This course covers the comprehensive understanding of product reliability and failure analysis. It delves into the importance of reliability in product design and how it is closely related to failure analysis. For instance, a product with a simple design and fewer components is likely to have higher reliability. The course also explains how to calculate reliability for systems where components are arranged in series or parallel. It further discusses the failure rate as a function of time, highlighting three distinct zones: the debugging phase, the chance failure phase, and the wear-out phase. The course concludes with an explanation of different failure distributions, including exponential, normal, and Weibull distributions, and how they can be used to calculate the probability of failure or the reliability of a product. It also covers the general procedure used in the failure analysis of metallurgical or mechanical components and the steps involved in failure analysis, including collection of background information, preliminary examination, non-destructive testing (NDT), mechanical property characterization, macroscopic and microscopic examination, and analysis of findings.