Engineering, Operational, Economic, and Legal Aspects of the Reliability Assurance

Abstract

Four principal groups of aspects govern the reliability assurance process, viz. engineering aspects, operational aspects, economic aspects, and legal aspects. All these groups mutually interact. Usually attention is paid only to the first two groups, but the importance of economic and legal factors in the reliability assessment of a constructed facility is not negligible. — Many partial factors affect the reliability assurance process: theoretical and empirical knowledge, experience; codes, reliability requirements; qualification of personnel, quality assurance and control; target life and target failure probability; economic climate, economic recession and expansion periods, inflation; system of legal documents, liabilities, insurance companies, and other factors.