Rotorcraft Tradespace Exploration incorporating Reliability Engineering

Recently tradespace analysis and exploration has emerged as an important focus area within the Department of Defense (DoD) Engineered Resilient System (ERS) initiative, which draws upon engineering concepts, science, and design tools to produce trusted and effective solutions for a wide range of operational contexts. Most of the previous research on tradespace analysis, including those developed for rotorcraft, emphasize performance. However, non-functional requirements such as reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) have received minimal consideration, despite their direct influence on program level concerns such as operation and support (O&S) as well as affordability. This paper proposes a strategy to incorporate reliability engineering into tradespace analysis. We also develop a subsystem level reliability investment model, which is illustrated through a simplified example. Our results suggest that reliability investment could achieve significant savings over a system's lifecycle.