A More Realistic Approach to Solid Rocket Reliability Analysis

Much of the traditional approach to reliability analysis in the areas of mathematical model development, apportionment, prediction and monitoring is shown to be incompatible with the inherent nature of solid rocket motors. Misuse of the product rule is discussed and the problems of attempting to utilize component failure data are highlighted. A new approach is suggested that describes a solid motor firing in terms of events and related failure modes instead of the traditional components. The more accurate utilization of past data on a failure mode rather than a component basis is discussed.