• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.407-414
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• 2002

The inherent reliability of a product is primarily determined in the design stage, and therefore, design engineers should be able to design reliability into the product in an efficient manner. Especially, the product should be designed such that its reliability is robust to various noise factors encountered in production and field environments. The Taguchi method can be effectively used for this purpose. However, there exist only a few attempts to integrate the Taguchi method with reliability design, and in addition, the existing works do not sufficiently consider the robustness and/or the distinction between noise and acceleration factors. This paper develops a unified approach to robust reliability design assuming that accelerated life tests are conducted at each combination of design and noise conditions. First, an experimental structure for assigning not only acceleration but also noise factors is presented. Second, the reliability at the use condition is estimated using the assumed accelerated life test model. Third, reliabilities are transformed into 'efforts' using an effort function which reflects the degree of difficulty involved in improving the reliability. Finally, an optimal setting of design parameters is determined based on the mean and standard deviation of the effort values. The above approach is illustrated with an example of a paper feeder design.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.386-403
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• 2016

The safety of nuclear power plants is analyzed by a probabilistic risk assessment, and the fault tree analysis is the most widely used method for a risk assessment with the event tree analysis. One of the well-known disadvantages of the fault tree is that drawing a fault tree for a complex system is a very cumbersome task. Thus, several graphical modeling methods have been proposed for the convenient and intuitive modeling of complex systems. In this paper, the reliability graph with general gates (RGGG) method, one of the intuitive graphical modeling methods based on Bayesian networks, is improved for the reliability analyses of dynamic systems that have various operation modes with time. A reliability matrix is proposed and it is explained how to utilize the reliability matrix in the RGGG for various cases of operation mode changes. The proposed RGGG with a reliability matrix provides a convenient and intuitive modeling of various operation modes of complex systems, and can also be utilized with dynamic nodes that analyze the failure sequences of subcomponents. The combinatorial use of a reliability matrix with dynamic nodes is illustrated through an application to a shutdown cooling system in a nuclear power plant.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.811-827
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• 2015

This paper presents a probabilistic investigation of American and European specifications (i.e., AISC and Eurocode 4) for square concrete-filled steel tubular (CFT) stub columns. The study is based on experimental results of 100 axially loaded square CFT stub columns from the literature. By comparing experimental results for ultimate loads with code-predicted column resistances, the uncertainty of resistance models is analyzed and it is found that the modeling uncertainty parameter can be described using random variables of lognormal distribution. Reliability analyses were then performed with/without considering the modeling uncertainty parameter and the safety level of the specifications is evaluated in terms of sufficient and uniform reliability criteria. Results show that: (1) The AISC design code provided slightly conservative results of square CFT stub columns with reliability indices larger than 3.25 and the uniformness of reliability indices is no better because of the quality of the resistance model; (2) The uniformness of reliability indices for the Eurocode 4 was better than that of AISC, but the reliability indices of columns designed following the Eurocode 4 were found to be quite below the target reliability level of Eurocode 4.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.174-179
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• 2013

Purpose: Visual gait analysis plays a pivotal role in determining the important gait problem of patients. A few studies have been published and have received little attention regarding visual gait analysis on patients with orthopedic problems. The purposes of this study were to investigate the difference of reliability levels according to experience of clinical physical therapists. Methods: Thirty-five clinical physical therapists, 5 high experienced, 15 experienced, and 15 inexperienced, were recruited and individually evaluated these videotaped gait patterns of the participants, and filled up the structured gait analysis form. The gait of nine participants was videotaped. Reliability levels were calculated by the Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC). Results: The inter-rater reliability of high experienced group (ICC=0.56; 95% CI: 0.50-0.62) was comparable to that of the experienced raters (ICC=0.48; 95% CI: 0.43-0.53) and inexperienced group (ICC=0.42; 95% CI: 0.38-0.46). High experienced group reached a higher inter-rater reliability level. The average intra-rater reliability of the high experienced group was 0.70 (ICCs ranging from 0.54 to 0.82). The experienced group reached an average intra-rater reliability of 0.61 (ICCs ranging from 0.47 to 0.81). The inexperienced group attained average ICC values of 0.53 (ICCs ranging from 0.30 to 0.74). Conclusion: Use of a structured gait analysis form as described in this study was found to be moderately reliable. Clinical experience appears to increase the reliability of visual gait analysis.

• The Journal of Advanced Prosthodontics
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.185-193
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• 2014

PURPOSE. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the intra-rater reliability and inter-rater reliability of three different methods using a drawing protractor, a digital protractor after tracing, and a CAD system. MATERIALS AND METHODS. Twenty-four artificial abutments that had been prepared by dental students were used in this study. Three dental students measured the convergence angles by each method three times. Bland-Altman plots were applied to examine the overall reliability by comparing the traditional tracing method with a new method using the CAD system. Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) evaluated intra-rater reliability and inter-rater reliability. RESULTS. All three methods exhibited high intra-rater and inter-rater reliability (ICC>0.80, P<.05). Measurements with the CAD system showed the highest intra-rater reliability. In addition, it showed improved inter-rater reliability compared with the traditional tracing methods. CONCLUSION. Based on the results of this study, the CAD system may be an easy and reliable tool for measuring the abutment convergence angle.

• Proceedings of the Korean Reliability Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.393-404
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• 2005

The environmental problem is a main subject of the 21C and an environment destruction phenomenon by various kinds of environmental materials is reaching serious level. Nations to be classified as the environmental developed country, are born again environmental rich country. And they earn a large income by trade Every kind environmental resource in an international commercial transaction. Especially, the study that a reliability assessment method to prevent to reliability problem to be happened when the solder lead(lead-free solder), non-cd component, non-bromide component(without the polybrominated biphenyls(PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers(PBDE))and hexavalent chromium(Cr VI) clearance component and mercury-free applied to electronic equipment is progressed. As the result of the study for applying of a reliability assessment technique of lead-free solder that recognized the most of urgent problem at the company, combination accelerated life test could taken by adding and appling the part of a humidity acceleration part to Eyring Model which is proposed by R.E.Thomas. The reliability assessment methods study of PWB clean environmental materials is expected to respond to a reliability elevation and environmental material regulation policy spreading all over the world by beginning form Europe.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.296-304
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• 2017

Purpose: Recent weapon systems in defense have increased the complexity and importance of software when developing multifunctional equipment. In this study, we analyze the accuracy of the proposed software reliability model when applied to weapon systems. Methods: Determine the similarity between software reliability analysis results (prediction/estimation) utilizing data from developing weapon systems and system failures data during operation of weapon systems. Results: In case of a software reliability prediction model, the predicted failure rate was higher than the actual failure rate, and the estimation model was consistent with actual failure history data. Conclusion: The software prediction model needs to adjust the variables that are appropriate for the domestic weapon system environment. As the reliability of software is increasingly important in the defense industry, continuous efforts are needed to ensure accurate reliability analysis in the development of weapon systems.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.241-259
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• 2005

The environmental problem is a main subject of the 21C and an environment destruction phenomenon by various kinds of environmental materials is reaching serious level. Nations to be classified as the environmental developed country, are born again environmental rich country. And they earn a large income by trade Every kind environmental resource in an international commercial transaction. Especially, the study that a reliability assessment method to prevent to reliability problem to be happened when the solder lead(lead-free solder), non-cd component, non-bromide component(without the polybrominated biphenyls(PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers(PBDE))and hexavalent chromium(Cr VI) clearance component and mercury-free applied to electronic equipment is progressed. As the result of the study for applying of a reliability assessment technique of lead-free solder that recognized the most of urgent problem at the company, combination accelerated life test could taken by adding and appling the part of a humidity acceleration part to Eyring Model which is proposed by R.E.Thomas. The reliability assessment methods study of PWB clean environmental materials is expected to respond to a reliability elevation and environmental material regulation policy spreading all over the world by beginning form Europe.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.205-212
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• 2003

Reliability means that certain parts or systems maintain its best qualities and functionalities within certain periods and is the prospective quality which the safe life of products is indicated by quantitative values and the highest level of reliability of the products is required to attain in the highly competitive business world. In Korea, there have been a significant growth in the field of reliability and government promotes the "Reliability Improvement Project" to establish infrastructure to conduct reliability assessment and certification. The importance and necessity is well recognized among researchers and engineers working in the research institutions and the manufacturing industries and many industries invest a great amount of money and effort in improving the reliability of its products. In this paper, the promotional status of reliability improvement project and necessity of establishment of the reliability certification system for aerospace field is presented.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.61-69
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• 2007

In a large complex system, maintenance priorities for the failed components are important to maintain the sys-tern reliability at required level. Commonly used methods of determining maintenance priorities are based onranking the failed components by using reliability importance measures such as Birnbaum reliability importance,risk achievement worth and F-V importance, etc. In the preceding works, maintenance priorities for the failedcomponents are determined by using such existing measures, In this study, a new method of determining main-tenance priorities, which utilizes the joint reliability importance is proposed. By investigating the sign of thejoint reliability importance, maintenance priorities obtained by the existing methods are adjusted to yield new re-vised priorities. The revised maintenance priorities are shown to be more effective than the existing ones fromthe standpoint of the speed of system recovery, Effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by numericalexamples.