Risk-Based Reliability Analysis and Generic Principles for Risk Reduction

This book has been written with the intention to fill two big gaps in the reliability and risk literature: the risk-based reliability analysis as a powerful alternative to the traditional reliability analysis and the generic principles for reducing technical risk. An important theme in the book is the generic principles and techniques for reducing technical risk. These have been classified into three major categories: preventive (reducing the likelihood of failure), protective (reducing the consequences from failure) and dual (reducing both, the likelihood and the consequences from failure). Many of these principles (for example: avoiding clustering of events, deliberately introducing weak links, reducing sensitivity, introducing changes with opposite sign, etc.) are discussed in the reliability literature for the first time. Significant space has been allocated to component reliability. In the last chapter of the book, several applications are discussed of a powerful equation which constitutes the core of a new theory of locally initiated component failure by flaws whose number is a random variable.

"The referee finds this book quite interesting and recommends to the students of reliability and researchers to have a closer look at it so that further research can be initiated to develop tools hitherto were not possible and a realist approach to risk-based reliability design of systems is possible. This book should be a good addition to a library of books on reliability and risk." --International Journal of Performability Engineering

Prof. Todinov’s background is Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. He holds a PhD and a higher doctorate (DEng) from the University of Birmingham. His name is associated with key results in the areas: Reliability and Risk, Flow networks, Probability, Statistics of inhomogeneous media, Theory of phase transformations, Residual stresses and Probabilistic fatigue and fracture.M.Todinov pioneered research on: the theory of repairable flow networks and networks with disturbed flows, risk-based reliability analysis - driven by the cost of system failure, fracture initiated by flaws in components with complex shape, reliability dependent on the relative configurations of random variables and optimal allocation of a fixed budget to achieve a maximal risk reduction.A sample of M.Todinov’s results include: introducing the hazard stress function for modelling the probability of failure of materials and deriving the correct alternative of the Weibull model; stating a theorem regarding the exact upper bound of properties from multiple sources and a theorem regarding variance of a distribution mixture; the formulation and proof of the necessary and sufficient conditions of the Palmgren-Miner rule and Scheil’s additivity rule; deriving the correct alternative of the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov equation and stating the dual network theorems for static flows networks and networks with disturbed flows.