The Reliability Engineering Glossary
Reliability engineering and related fields use a vocabulary unique to our field of endeavor. For example, the term ‘reliability’ has the meaning of ‘trustworthy’ in everyday English use. For us, ‘reliability’ has a precise engineering definition.
Glossary description and plans
This glossary is meant to help us learn the language of reliability engineering. The category of ‘Terms’ is like a dictionary, including terms and their definitions as used by engineers. The category of ‘Methods’ is a listing of the techniques, tools, approaches, or concepts that may be found within a reliability plan. In the near future, we expect to expand the ‘Methods’ pages to include guidelines on use or application, examples, and additional references.
We also plan to expand the glossary to include formulas and failure mechanisms. Please let us know if there is another list of terms that should be added if you do not find a term that should be included or if you would like to recommend a change to an existing entry.
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- Accidental reuseReuse without a strategy, reusing software components not designed for reuse. Read More
- AccountabilityThe acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting(...) Read More
- AccreditationCertification by a duly recognized body of the facilities, capability, objectivity, competence and integrity of an agency, service or operational group or individual to provide the specific service or operation needed. The meaning of the term varies by industry, regulation, or discipline. Read More
- Accreditation bodyAn organization with authority to accredit other organizations to perform services such as quality system certification. Read More
- AccuracyCloseness of agreement between a test result or measurement result and the true value. (Reference ISO 3534-2:2006) Read More
- Achieved1) Obtained as the result of measurement. 2) Obtained as verified by measurement, as in "achieved reliability performance." Read More
- Acoustic microscopeA system that uses ultrasound to create an image of an item’s surface or subsurface features. Typically a non-destructive test method useful for the detection of delamination or voids within an item. Read More
- The minimum quantity of energy that the reacting species must possess in order to undergo a specified chemical reaction. Read More
- Activation energy, apparent (Eat)1) an equivalent activation energy for use with complex structures (IC for example) to estimate the time to failure distribution. 2) a calculated activation energy using the relationship between stress and failure rate (empirically derived) representing the relationship between the applied(...) Read More
- Active desiccantA desiccant that is either fresh (new) or recently treated to restore as new condition. Read More
- Active inventoryItems in raw material, work in process, or finished goods inventory to be consumed and/or sold within a specific accounting period (typically one year). Read More
- Active redundancyThe duplicate components or functions of a system (element of a redundant design) are operating as the system operates. Read More
- Active timeThat time during which an item is in an operational inventory. Read More
- ActivityA set of tasks in the performance of a function. Read More
- Activity based costingAn accounting system that assigns costs to a product based on the amount of resources used to design, order or make it. Read More
- Activity centerA specific location uniquely configured for human activity, such as personal hygiene, body waste, food, sleep, trash, stowage, exercise, etc. Read More
- Activity network diagramA quality management tool that charts the flow of activity between separate tasks. It graphically displays interdependent relationships between groups, steps, and tasks as they all impact a project. Bubbles, boxes, and arrows are used to depict these activities and the links between them. Used(...) Read More
- Actuarial analysisStatistical analysis of failure data to determine the age-reliability characteristics of an item. Read More
- Acute field of viewThe region of visual angle in which acuity remains at least half its maximum. It is about 3 degrees in diameter. Read More
- Adaptive reuseUsing existing software modified only for portability. Read More
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