SYSTEM RELIABILITY OF THE NEXT GENERATION ATTRIBUTE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

Year
2006
Author(s)
Morag Smith - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Pete Karpius - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Duc T. Vo - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Jonathan L. Thron - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Kate Frame - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Richard Williams - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dave Bracken - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lou Carrillo - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Tim Elmont - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Janice Gallegos - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Jason Shergur - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Duncan W. MacArthur - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Abstract
As work begins on the design of the Next Generation Attribute Measurement System (NG-AMS), we need to consider reliability of the system. Reliability for this system is defined as the probability that the system will accurately perform attribute measurements on any anticipated or reasonably similar items throughout a ten-year life span under a set of defined conditions. The NG-AMS and all components, excluding items requiring periodic replacement, should be designed for a minimum ten-year life span. System reliability is an issue because the frequency of facility inspection is likely to be low and the cost of these inspections is likely to be high. Therefore, it is very important that the NG-AMS should start and function properly during inspection visits. In order to determine the reliability of the system one must perform a series of steps to estimate the mean time between failures (MTBF) and the mean time to repair (MTTR). Results of an analysis estimating the MTBF and the MTTR of the NG-AMS will be presented. This analysis is based on the failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) and provides a way to look at each component within the NG-AMS throughout every process. This paper will discuss reliability issues within the NG-AMS and how it will be assured that the NG-AMS will last throughout a ten-year life span.