exida

exida explains Blog

Entries tagged with: Dangerous Undetected Failures

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - FIT

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - FIT

Failures ITime or Failure UnIT

FIT is the number of failures per billion hours for a piece of equipment. 

It is mentioned in both IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 standards as a preferred unit of measurement expressed by 109 hours.

Example: 5 FIT is expressed as 5 failures within 109 hours . 

When you…

Read More...

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λ

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λ

The Greek symbol lambda, λ, represents failure rates in functional safety, usually expressed in the unit of measurement of FITS.

λ can be expressed as a total failure rate for a device (λT), or it can be broken down into more specific groupings:

  • Safe detected (λSD)
  • Safe undetected (λSU)
  • Read More...

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λD

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λD

The Greek symbol  λD represents dangerous failure rates in functional safety, usually expressed in the unit of measurement of FITs, and can be determined through FMEDAs. (FITs (λ) are failures per billion hours, expressed by 10-9 hours).

λD is the number of dangerous failures per…

Read More...

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λDD

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λDD

The Greek symbol  λDD is the detectable dangerous failure rate in functional safety expressed in the unit of measurement of FITs which can be determined through FMEDAs. (FITs (λ) are failures per billion hours, expressed by 10-9 hours).

Lambda DD

λDD is the number of…

Read More...

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λDU

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λDU

The Greek symbol  λDU is the undetectable dangerous failure rate in functional safety expressed in the unit of measurement of FITs which can be determined through FMEDAs. (FITs (λ) are failures per billion hours, expressed by 10-9 hours).

λDU is the number of dangerous undetected failures…

Read More...

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λS

Back to Basics: Failure Rates - λS

The Greek symbol  λS represents safe or spurious failure rates in functional safety expressed in the unit of measurement of FITs which can be determined through FMEDAs. (FITs (λ) are failures per billion hours, expressed by 10-9 hours).

λS is the number of safe…

Read More...

Why Does My Proof Test Coverage Change with Partial Stroke Testing?

I have run into this question a couple of times now and though the answer is somewhat straightforward, some customers have trouble wrapping their head around this without a clear example. So here we go…

First of all we need to keep in mind that the objective of a…

Read More...