Graduate Courses Descriptions: Reliability and Risk Engineering
Reliability Engineering Graduate Program
This program covers aspects of engineering related to reliability and risk assessment. The primary areas of specialization include:
- Microelectronic reliability;
- Reliability analysis;
- Risk analysis;
- Software Reliability;
Examples of current research topics include:
- Measuring, tracking, and predicting levels of reliability during systems life cycle;
- Understanding why and how components, systems, and processes fail;
- Improvement of reliability by removing failure causes.
- Providing input to decision making on system design and operation;
- Determining potential undesirable consequences of systems and processes;
- Identifying how potential undesirable consequences of systems and processes happen;
- Assessing the probability of frequency of consequences;
- Providing input to decision makers on optimal strategies to reduce risk;
- Human reliability analysis;
- Microelectronic device reliability and stress analysis;
- Software quality assurance;
- Study of Information security and software safety;
- Software testing.
ENRE 400 - PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY AND RELIABILITY IN ENGINEERING (3)
Not open to reliability engineering graduate students. Introduction to the basic principles of reliability and quality. Quality topics include: quality loss function, causes of variation and variance reduction techniques, and quality control activities and process control charts. Reliability topics include: basic probability and statistics, component and system reliability models, reliability analysis tools and physics of failure in product development.
ENRE 445 - APPLIED RELIABILITY ENGINEERING I (3)
Prerequisites: MATH 246 and PHYS 263 or permission of department. Topics covered include: fundamental understanding of how things fail, probabilistic models to represent failure phenomena, life-models for non-repairable items, reliability data collection and analysis and applicable quality techniques. Distribution functions such as the normal, Weibull, exponential, binomial, and gamma are explored.
ENRE 446 - APPLIED RELIABILITY ENGINEERING II (3)
Prerequisites: MATH 246 and PHYS 263 or permission ission of department. Topics covered include: System modeling and analysis, designing for reliability, reliability testing, reliability in manufacturing, and reliability management. Fault tree analysis, RBD, and cut sets are covered along with sneak circuits, time-on-test plots and acceptance testing.
ENRE 447 - SYSTEM SAFETY ENGINEERING (3)
Prerequisites: MATH 246 and PHYS 263 or permission of department. Role of system safety, the language of system safety, and programs for achieving safety, such as the problem solving process, safety criteria, safety descriptors, checklist-timeliness elements, safety training, hazard analysis, and uncertainty in safety measurements. Time-phased indicators, hazard nomenclature, hazard mode and effect analysis, hazard classification, hazard probability, survival rate, distributions applied to human performance.
ENRE 452 - SOFTWARE TESTING (3)
Prerequisites: CMSC 114 or 214, and either CMSC/MATH 475 or MATH 461; or permission of department. Topics covered include: testing methods for unit testing, integration testing, and system testing; structural testing (flowgraphs and data-flows); functional testing (behavioral models and textual descriptions); deterministic and statistical generation of inputs; and testing of object-oriented programs.
ENRE 489 - SPECIAL TOPICS IN RELIABILITY ENGINEERING (3)
Prerequisite: permission of department. Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs. Selected topics of current importance in reliability engineering.
ENRE 600 - FUNDAMENTALS OF FAILURE MECHANISMS (3)
Corequisite: ENRE 620. Introduces the student to some basic principles of reliability engineering and reliability physics. The approach is to provide a general tool set by which engineers can understand how to consider reliability in all phases of the design and manufacture of a product. The emphasis is on integrating statistics and probability with understanding the ftindamental physics of processes that lead to failures.
ENRE 602 - RELIABILITY ANALYSIS (3)
Corequisite: ENRE 620. Principal methods of reliability analysis, including fault tree and reliability block diagrams; Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA); event tree construction and evaluation; reliability data collection and analysis; methods of modeling systems for reliability analysis. Focus on problems related to process industries, fossil-fueled power plant availability, and other systems of concern to engineers.
ENRE 607 - Reliability Engineering Seminar (1)
Prerequisites: None. Topics of current interest, emphasizing the latest. techniques and developments. Invited speakers will be selected to provide insights from the viewpoint of practitioners noted for their expertise in various facets of industry. Managers of reliability programs will be included along with those who are responsible for setting national policies and requirements. In-depth reviews will be provided, describing current research work underway across the nation.
ENRE 620 - MATHEMATICAL TECHNIQUES OF RELIABILITY ENGINEERING (3)
Prerequisites: MATH 246 or permission of department. Basic probability and statistics (required for ENRE 600 and ENRE 602). Application of selected mathematical techniques to the analysis and solution of reliability engineering problems. Applications of matrices, vectors, tensors, differential equations, integral transforms, and probability methods to a wide range of reliability-related problems.
ENRE 624 - FAILURE MECHANISMS AND EFFECTS LABORATORY (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 600 or permission of instructor. Techniques for studying failure analysis, corrosion and corrosion protection, statistical process control, mechanical failure mode analysis, failure reporting and corrective. action systems, and environmental stress screening.
ENRE 625 - MATERIAL SELECTION AND MECHANICAL RELIABILITY (3)
Prerequisites: None. Topics include: microstructure development, mechanical properties of metals, polymers, ceramics, composites and semiconductors, fracture, fatigue, creep, firactography, and failure analysis.
ENRE 640 - COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS OF RELIABILITY DATA (3)
Prerequisites: ENRE 620 and ENRE 602. Basic life model concepts. Probabilistic life models, for components with both time independent and time dependent loads. Data analysis, parametric and nonparametric estimation of basic time-to-failure distributions. Data analysis for systems. Accelerated life models. Repairable systems modeling.
ENRE 641 - ACCELERATED TESTING (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 663 or permission of instructor. Models for life testing at constant stress. Graphical and analytical analysis methods. Test plans for accelerated testing. Competing failure modes and size effects. Models and data analyses for step and time varying stresses. Optimization of test plans.
ENRE 642 - RELIABILITY ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT (3)
Prerequisites: None. Unifying systems perspective of reliability engineering management. Design, development and management of organizations and reliability programs including: management of systems evaluation and test protocols, development of risk management-mitigation processes, and management of functional tasks performed by reliability engineers.
ENRE 643 - ADVANCED PRODUCT ASSURANCE (3)
Prerequisites: ENRE 600 and ENRE 602 or permission of instructor. Product assurance policies, objectives, and management. Material acquisition management, quality control documents and product assurance costing. Design input and process control, advanced testing technology, regression methods, and nondestructive testing. Simulation techniques, CAD/CAE methods. Software quality management, software documentation, and software testing methods. Total quality management.
ENRE 644 - BAYESIAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS (3)
Prerequisites: ENRE 600 and ENRE 602. Foundations of Bayesian statistical inference, Bayesian inference in reliability, performing a Bayesian reliability analysis, Bayesian decision and estimation theory, prior distributions such as non-informative, conjugate, beta, gamma, and negative log gamma, estimation methods based on attribute life test data for estimating failure rates and survival probabilities. System reliability assessment and methods of assigning prior distribution. Empirical Bayes reliability estimates (implicitly or explicitly estimated priors).
ENRE 645 - HUMAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS (3)
Prerequisites: ENRE 600 and ENRE 602; or permission of department. Credit will be granted for only one of the following: ENRE 645, or ENSE 606. Methods of solving practical human reliability problems, the THERP, SLIM, OAT, and SHARP methods, performance shaping factors, human machine systems analysis, distribution of human performance. and uncertainty bounds, skill levels, source of human error probability data, examples and case studies.
ENRE 646 - MAINTAINABILITY ENGINEERING (3)
Prerequisites: None. Role of maintainability in readiness and profitability. Design principles, including fault-tolerant design, FMECA for maintainability, maintainability quantification, establishing testability requirements, establishing hardware and software requirements, and reliability-centered maintenance.
ENRE 648 - SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN RELIABILITY ENGINEERING (1-6)
Repeatable to 6 credits if content differs. For students who have definite plans for individual study of faculty-approved problems. Credit given according to extent of work.
ENRE 653 - ADVANCED RELIABILITY AND MAINTAINABILITY ENGINEERING (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 600. Reliability and maintainability concepts in conceptual, development, production, and deployment phases of industrial products. Costing of reliability, methods of obtaining approximate reliability estimates and confidence limits. Methods of reliability testing-current research and developments in the area of reliability engineering. Modem CAD techniques in reliability design, thermal analysis of circuit boards, vibration analysis, maintainability analysis, and preventive maintenance methods.
ENRE 655 - ADVANCED METHODS IN RELIABILITY MODELING (3)
Prerequisites: None. Bayesian methods and applications, estimation of rare event frequencies, uncertainty analysis and propagation methods, reliability analysis of dynamic systems, analysis of dependent failures, reliability of repairable systems, human reliability analysis methods, and theory of logic diagrams and application to systems reliability.
ENRE 657 - TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS RELIABILITY (3)
Prerequisites: None. Reliability perspectives in telecommunications networks, comparison of networks with respect to operations & reliability, network reliability modeling techniques, applicable procedural/human reliability models, and network metric objectives and data collection.
ENRE-661 - MICROELECTRONICS DEVICE RELIABILITY (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 600. This course develops an approach to continuous improvement of reliability of semiconductor devices. Topics covered include: Introduction to device technology, degradation mechanisms, optoelectronic components, power device reliability, and accelerated testing.
ENRE 662 - RELIABILITY AND QUALITY IN MICROCIRCUIT MANUFACTURING (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 600. Design and materials characteristics of microcircuits, including discrete chips, hybrids, printed wiring boards and electronic assemblies. Thermal design analysis. Common failure mechanisms, including metallization and interconnect degradation. Typical manufacturing processes and variability control. Design for reliability and manufacturability.
ENRE 664 - ELECTRONICS PACKAGING MATERIALS (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 246, PHYS 263, or permission of instructor. Energy bands and carrier concentration, carrier transport phenomena, p-n junction, bipolar devices, unipolar devices, crystal growth and epitaxy, oxidation and film deposition, diffusion and ion implantation, lithography and etching, integrated devices, electomigration.
ENRE 670 - RISK ASSESSMENT FOR ENGINEERS I (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 602. Why study risk, sources of risk, probabilistic risk assessment procedure, factors affecting risk acceptance, statistical risk acceptance analysis, psychometric risk acceptance, perception of risk, comparison or risks, consequence analysis, risk benefit assessment. Risk analysis performed for light water reactors, chemical industry, and dams. Class projects on risk management concepts.
ENRE 671 - RISK ASSESSMENT FOR ENGINEERS II (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 670. The course covers advanced techniques for performing quantitative risk assessment. The fundamental theory of systems risk modeling, methods for vulnerability identification, risk scenario development, and probability assessment are presented. Also covered are methods for risk results presentation, and several example applications.
ENRE 681 - SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE (3)
Prerequisites: None. Topics covered will include: QA roles in the software lifecycle, government and industry standards/methodologies, quality system scoring, quality system management, quality analysis metrics and tools for assessment. The principles of software configuration management, software testing, and maintenance will also be covered. A laboratory with software quality analysis tools is used.
ENRE 682 - SOFTWARE RELIABILITY AND INTEGRITY (3)
Prerequisite: ENRE 620 or permission of instructor. Defining software reliability, initiatives and standards on software reliability, inherent characteristics of software which determine reliability, types of software errors, structured design, overview of software reliability models, software fault tree analysis, software redundancy, automating tools for software reliability protypes, and real time software reliability.
ENRE 683 - SOFTWARE SAFETY (3)
Prerequisites: None. The focus is on major software safety standards in government and industry, the software safety lifecycle, and detailed coverage in safety requirements-specification, analysis, and modeling, designing, coding, testing and maintenance. Also covered are hazard analysis and design, failure modes and effects analysis, fault tree analysis, designing for fault tolerance, and formal methods techniques for developing high assurance software. A laboratory with software tools is used.
ENRE 684 - INFORMATION SECURITY (3)
Prerequisites: None. This course is divided into three major components: overview, detailed concepts, and implementation techniques. The topics to be covered are: general security concerns and concepts from both a technical and management point of view, principles of security, architectures, access control and multi-level security, trojan horses, covert channels, trap doors, hardware security mechanisms, security models, security kernels, formal specifications and verification, networks and distribution systems and risk analysis.
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