Introduction to Reliability and Its Importance

Reliability engineering is becoming a multidisciplinary science. In earlier days, reliability engineering was considered as equal to applied probability theory and statistics. Nowadays, the reliability research area has been clearly subdivided into smaller entities. The research topics may be divided by the methodology applied; mathematics-based approaches have a long history, especially in reliability analysis of large systems, while physics-based approaches are being introduced, especially in component level studies. New concepts in mathematics are swiftly being introduced to reliability engineering. These include, for example, fuzzy logic [1] and Petri Nets [2]. Physical reliability science has benefited from the increasing computing power that has enabled accurate modeling of complex structures [3–5].