Reliability and Safety Engineering

Reliability and safety are core issues that must be addressed throughout the life cycle of engineering systems. Reliability and Safety Engineering presents an overview of the basic concepts, together with simple and practical illustrations.

The authors present reliability terminology in various engineering fields, viz., electronics engineering, software engineering, mechanical engineering, structural engineering and power systems engineering. The book describes the latest applications in the area of probabilistic safety assessment, such as technical specification optimization, risk monitoring and risk informed in-service inspection. Reliability and safety studies must, inevitably, deal with uncertainty, so the book includes uncertainty propagation methods: Monte Carlo simulation, fuzzy arithmetic, Dempster-Shafer theory and probability bounds. Reliability and Safety Engineering also highlights advances in system reliability and safety assessment including dynamic system modeling and uncertainty management. Case studies from typical nuclear power plants as well as from structural, software and electronic systems are also discussed.

Reliability and Safety Engineering combines discussions of theexisting literature on basic concepts and applications with state-of-the-art methods used in reliability and risk assessment of engineering systems. It is designed to assist practicing engineers, students and researchers in the areas of reliability engineering and risk analysis.

Ajit K. Verma is aProfessor (Technical Safety), ATØM, Stord/Haugesund University College,Haugesund, Norway (since March 2012) and has been a Professor (since Feb 2001)and Senior (HAG) scale Professor (since Jan 2013) with the DepartmentofElectrical Engineering at IIT Bombay with a research focus in Reliability andSafety Engineering( He has been on leave from IIT Bombay since March 2012). Hewas the Director of the International Institute of Information Technology Pune,on lien from IIT Bombay, from Aug 2009-Sep 2010. He hassupervised/co-supervised 37 PhDs(IIT Bombay and Lulea Technical University,Sweden) and 95 Masters theses(IIT Bombay; LJMU,UK; WMG,Warwick University,UK)in the area of Electronics System reliability, Software Reliability, ReliableComputing, Power Systems Reliability (PSR), Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) and Probabilistic Safety/Risk Assessment (PSA) andPlant Engineering. He is the Springer Book Series Editor of Reliable & SustainableElectric Power and Energy Systems Management and jointly edited(with Prof.RoyBillinton and Prof.Rajesh Karki) books titled 1.Reliability and Risk Evaluationof Wind Integrated Power Systems 2. Reliability Modeling and Analysis of SmartPower Systems andis also an author of books titled Fuzzy ReliabilityEngineering-Concepts and Applications (Narosa), Optimal Maintenance of LargeEngineering initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Systems(Narosa), Reliability andSafety Engineering (Springer), Dependability of Networked Computer Based Systems(Springer),Risk Management of Non-Renewable Energy Systems(Springer). He hasover 250 publications in various journals (125 papers) and conferences. He is asenior member of IEEE and a life fellowof IETE. He has been the Editor-in-Chiefof OPSEARCH published by Springer(Jan 2008-Jan 2011) as well as the FounderEditor-in-Chief of International Journal of Systems Assurance Engineering andManagement(IJSAEM) published by Springer and an Editor-in-Chief of Journal ofLife Cycle Reliability and Safety Engineering. He has been on the editorialboard of international journals like Quality Assurance (Associate Editor),International Journal of Automation & Computing(Springer) (AssociateEditor), Communications in Dependabilityand Quality Management, InternationalJournal of Performability Engineering, International Journal of Reliability,Quality andSafety Engineering (World Scientific), International Journal ofQuality, Statistics, andReliability (Hindawi) and on the advisory board ofOPSEARCH(published by Springer) and International Journal of SwarmIntelligence(Inderscience). He has served as a Guest Editor of Special IssueofIETE Technical Review on Quality Management in Electronics,Telecommunication& Information Technology, 2001 and as a Guest Editor of SpecialIssue of International Journal of Reliability, Quality and Safety Engineering(World Scientific) Dec 2004, June 2006, April 2008, Dec 2009 & June 2010.He hasbeen a Guest Editor of Special Issue of DQM Communications, 2006, 2007& 2009 and Special Issue on ‘Dependability in computing systems’ ofInternational Journal ofPerformability Engineering, 2006. He was a Guest Editorof Special Issue on ‘Reliable Computing’ of International Journal of Automationand Computing (Oct 2007), May 2010, IJSAEM (June 2010) (with Prof RoyBillintonand Prof RajeshKarki) and IJSAEM (March 2011) ( with Prof Lotfi Zadehand Prof Ashok Deshpande) and IEEE Transactions on Reliability, March 2011 . Heis an Editor of ` Current Trends in Reliability, Availability, Maintainabilityand Safety- An Industry Perspective` being published by Lecture Notes inMechanical Engineering, Springer Series. 

Prof. A. Srividya is aProfessor II at Stord/Haugesund University College(Aug 2014-July 2015). She wasa Guest Professor from August 2012 till July 2014 at Stord/Haugesund UniversityCollege, Haugesund,Norway prior to which she worked with IIT Bombay since 1988where she is a Professor in Civil Engineering with research focus in the areasof Reliability & Safety Engineering and Quality Management. She hassupervised/co-supervised 28 PhD’s and 50 Masters thesis in the area ofStructural Reliability, Reliability Based Optimisation, Simulation Studies forReliability Estimation, Quality BenchmarkingStudies for Service Industries, Quality Systems and Accelerated Life Testing.She has executed various research projects to promote industry interface andhas been course co-ordinator for industry CEPs like Reliability Engineering andQuality Management and Six Sigma for IT industries. She has jointly authoredbooks titled “Fuzzy Reliability Engineering-Concepts and Applications”(Narosa)and ‘Optimal Maintenance of Large Engineering Systems’(Narosa), ‘Reliabilityand Safety Engineering’(Springer), ‘Dependability of Networked Computer basedSystems’(Springer)and `Risk Management of Non-Renewable Energy Systems’(Springer). She has 205 publications in various international and nationaljournals and conferences. She has been an Area Editor of OPSEARCH journalpublished by Springer as well as an Editor of International Journal of SystemsAssurance Engineering and Management(IJSAEM) published by Springer and Memberin the Editorial Board of International journal of Communications inDependability and Quality Management. She has been Conference Chairperson ofInternational Conference on Reliability, Safety & Hazard 2005 (Advances inRisk Informed Technology) at Hotel the Leela, Mumbai, Dec 01-03, 2005. She wasinstrumental in editing and reviewing the proceedings of various InternationalConferences like International Conference on Quality Reliability and Control2001, International Conference on Multimedia and Design 2002 and InternationalConference on Quality Reliability and Information Technology 2003 andInternational Conference on Reliability, Safety & Hazard 2005 and anEditorof the proceedings (Narosa). She was also the Conference Chair forInternational Conference on Quality, Reliability and Infocom Technology  heldat INSA, New Delhi(Dec’ 2-4),2006. She was a Conference Chair of theInternational Conference on Reliability, Safety and Quality Engineering, heldat NPCIL, Mumbai from Jan 5-7, 2008 and Editor of the proceedings (Macmillan),Conference Chair, 4th International Conference on Quality, Reliability andInfocom Technology 2009 (ICQRIT - 2009), 18 - 20 Dec 2009 New Delhi, India. Sheis a recipient of “Leadership in Reliability Engineering Education &Research award” by Society of Reliability Engineering, Quality & OperationsManagement. 

Dr. Durga Rao Karankihas been working as a Scientist at Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland since2009. His current research primarily focuses on dynamic risk assessment anduncertainty propagation. He is a visiting faculty at KINGS, Ulsan, South Koreaand Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He is on the editorial board ofthree international journals in the area of reliability and risk analysis. Hehas actively been involved in probabilistic safety assessment and risk informeddecision-making research on nuclear reactors forthe last 12 years. His research resulted in more than 50 publications including2 books, 12 first author journal papers, and several conference papers. One ofhis works got into the list of most cited Reliability Engineering and SystemSafety articles (2013 and 2014). He received two awards (2009, 2012) forresearch Excellency from Society for Reliability Engineering, Quality andOperations Management (SREQOM), New Delhi. 

Prior to joining PSI, heworked as a Scientific Officer (2002- 2009) in PSA Section of Bhabha AtomicResearch Centre (Mumbai, India), where he conducted research on Dynamic FaultTree Analysis, Uncertainty Analysis, and Risk Informed Decision Making. He wasalso a visiting faculty at Department of Atomic Energy (India) trainingschools. He holds B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from theNagarjuna University (India), M.Tech in Reliability Engineering from the IndianInstitute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur and Ph.D. from the IIT Bombay.