Introduction to Prognostics

The scientific field encompassing the sensing, collecting, and processing of data to diagnose and provide a prognosis of the health of a system and estimates of future failure events is complex. This chapter provides a general overview of this complex scientific field. It outlines the basic ideas and methods of reliability engineering, followed by brief discussions of the main ideas of the different elements of prognostic health management. The chapter presents the foundation upon which reliability is built: failure distributions, probability and reliability, probability density functions and relationships, failure rate, and expected value and variance. Traditional life data analysis assumes normal stress levels and other normal conditions. During operations, extreme stress levels may occur that significantly alter life characteristics. The chapter also outlines some of the most frequently used models. They play significant roles in reliability engineering, especially in designing accelerated testing. The chapter also presents an overview of this book.