Reliability Engineering for Appropriate Environmental Technology

Abstract

Reliability is important in any engineering system, but particularly in those in which failure can have a profound effect on people’s well-being and health. Reliability engineering is designing to balance the risk and cost of system failure against the cost of building a stronger, more fail-proof system. In the context of appropriate technology for environmental protection we are interested in designing to use locally available materials and locally manufactured equipment, and to consider maintenance programs as vital components of the design. The most appropriate system may be one that uses materials that are locally available even though these materials are of such quality that they frequently fail. The probable frequency of failure, the distribution of time between failures, the expected time to make a repair, and the cost of repairs must be evaluated.