September 2016 Edition

Recent Headlines:

Defense:

Fueling the Future: AF Works to ‘Home-Grow’ Biofuels for DOD, Industry – U.S. Air Force

A need to address increases in petroleum costs with an environmentally friendly fuel source has led to a new way of looking at production and the Defense Production Act Title III Program Office, part of the Air Force Research Laboratory, is playing a critical role in commercializing this technology.

Textron Systems Delivers First TAPV to the Canadian Army – ASD News

A Textron Inc. company, announced today the delivery of the first Tactical Armoured Patrol Vehicle (TAPV) to the Canadian Army.

Wyoming Air Guard C-130’s to Receive Prop Upgrades – Department of Defense

Fast forward to 2016, and the maintenance group has been working for the past year to ready aircraft to accept the 3.5 engine enhancement modification.

Last Mission for “Guard Copter 368” – DVIDS

A South Carolina Army National Guard (SCARNG) CH-47D Chinook helicopter lands at Fort Drum and refuels during its last official mission, Aug. 18, 2016, Fort Drum, NY.

U.S. Nuclear Modernization Programs – Arms Control Association

The United States maintains an arsenal of about 1,750 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), and Strategic Bombers and some 180 tactical nuclear weapons at bomber bases in five European countries.

Pentagon Weapons Buyer Orders Review of Troubled New Carrier – Bloomberg Technology

The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer has ordered an independent review of the $12.9 billion Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, citing a list of actual and potential deficiencies with the costliest warship ever.

Navy Chooses Seven Companies to Make Electrical, Mechanical Upgrades to Surface Warships – Military & Aerospace

U.S. Navy shipboard technology experts are looking to seven companies for upgrades to electrical, mechanical, and hull systems aboard Navy surface warships.

HMS Daring: Royal Navy Sends Destroyer to Fight Isis Despite Concerns Over Warship’s Reliability – Independent

The Royal Navy is sending a destroyer to help in the fight against Isis, despite concerns that the warship’s advanced engine system could break down in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.

ManTech Secures Contract to Support Navy’s Aircraft Platforms – GovConWire

ManTech International will provide engineering and technical support for the U.S. Navy‘s aircraft platforms under an $8 million contract.

Raytheon – US Navy Collaboration Improves Mine Detection – Yahoo!

Raytheon Company and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center – Division Newport have enhanced Raytheon’s AN/AQS-20A mine-hunting sonar for better performance and reliability, including higher-quality imaging of objects deep under the sea, improving the system’s ability to identify and classify mines.

Automotive:

Automotive Companies Successfully Meet Disruptive Challenges – Retarus

The Automotive industry has begun growing again in the last few years.

Energy:

DoD Energy Resilience – 2016 Energy Exchange

2016 DoD Energy Resilience

Wave Energy Could Provide Reliable Form of Electricity for Coastlines Worldwide – GIT

Ocean energy technology, a largely untapped resource until recently, has emerged as a practical and potentially more reliable form of natural renewable energy than wind or solar.

Nuclear Plants Maintain Energy Reliability During July Heat Dome – Daily Energy Insider

The Nuclear Energy Institute announced on Thursday that nuclear energy facilities maintained energy reliability for American consumers during July’s heat dome, during which U.S. nuclear facilities had an average capacity factor of 96.6 percent or higher.

Upgrading America’s Natural Gas Infrastructure for Safety and Reliability – CSG

Recent pipeline accidents, such as those in Allentown, Pa., and San Bruno, Calif., have raised concerns about pipeline safety and the consequences of the aging natural gas infrastructure in the United States.

Rolling Stock:

Keeping Reliability and Quality on Track – Dormer Pramet

More and more travelers use modern train services because of their ease, cost effectiveness, comfort and safety. It is therefore a matter of course for manufacturers of rail and train components to ensure that quality products and services continue to be delivered to the industry every day.

Space/Aviation:

NASA Selects ULA’s Reliable Atlas V Rocket to Launch Mars 2020 Mission – Parabolic ARC

NASA’s Launch Services Program announced today that it selected United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) proven Atlas V vehicle to launch Mars 2020, its next robotic science rover. This award resulted from a competitive procurement under the NASA Launch Services contract.

Russia’s Roscosmos to Spend Over $29Mln Upgrading Rocket Engine Reliability – Russian Aviation

Russian state space corporation Roscosmos is allocating over 1.9 billion rubles ($29 million) to upgrading carrier rocket engines, rocket boosters and spacecraft, according to materials published on Russia’s official public procurement website on Tuesday.

Industrial:

Are You Being Ruined by Best Efforts: Does your Maintenance & Reliability Strategy Really Support Defect Elimination and Incident Avoidance? – Emerson Reiliability Consulting

Much has been publicised in recent years on high profile industrial failures and the impact these have had on people and the environment, not least the operating companies involved (reputation and costs).

APT’s Latest Expansion of Its Asset Strategy Library to Improve Reliability of Industrial Equipment – International Mining

ASL-R19 sets new standard for Preventive Maintenance Optimization in Asset Performance Management programs in asset-intensive industries. Asset Performance Technologies has released the 19th version of its Asset Strategy Library.

Electronics:

Embedment Technology Benefits Power-Drive Electronics in Electric Vehicles – Catrene

Based on chip-embedding technology for thin insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and diodes, and an innovative double-sided wafer plating process and equipment for thin wafers, the EmPower project is developing an innovative packaging concept of high-power modules for e-mobility and industrial applications, especially in automotive. An important project objective is to drastically improve heat dissipation and thermal impedance of embedded power cores by deploying double-sided cooling and vertical current and heat flow.

Anti-Sulfuration Resistors Contribute to Long-Term Reliability – Electronic Specifier

The availability of anti-sulfuration chip resistors have been announced by ROHM, they are optimised for applications exposed to sulfur-rich environments such as communication infrastructure, automotive systems and industrial equipment. Sulfur particles are generally present in the air in various forms due to sulfur and automotive exhaust gases.

Field Data Proves GaN FET Reliability, Says EPC – EE News

Gallium nitride power FET maker Efficient Power Conversion has published its reliability report documenting GaN technology reliability after millions of device hours of stress testing, and based on analysis of all field returns.

EPC eGaN FETs Reliability Testing: Phase 8 – Efficient Power Conversion

Including this document, Efficient Power Conversion Corporation has published a series of eight reliability reports covering all released products. Product specific detailed stress test results have been compiled and reported millions of actual device hours. In addition to product qualification stress testing, due diligence is necessary in other areas of reliability such as field experience, failures over device operational lifetime, and board level reliability

Countering Counterfeits: ASU Professor Works on Making Electronics More Secure – Arizona State University

Accidentally purchasing a counterfeit product usually results in an inferior product and mild annoyance for the average consumer, but if the military receives a counterfeit computer chip it can mean major security and reliability issues with failures at critical moments.

Lifetime and Reliability by Gunther Sejkora – LED Professional

Although questions regarding lifetime and reliability of Solid-State-Lighting (SSL) products are essential for customers, knowledge about it is still fragmentary.

Software:

Fuzzy Logic Based Software Reliability Quantification Framework: Early Stage Perspective – Science Direct

Authors of the paper have proposed a highly structured framework that guides the process of quantifying software reliability, before the coding of the software start.

Application of Artificial Neural Network for Software Reliability Growth Modeling with Testing Effort – INDJST

The proposed ANN based model provides consistent performance for both exponential and S-shaped growth of mean value functions witnessed in software projects.

Assessing Software Reliability of Goel-Okumoto Model – IJETMAS

In this project we propose a control mechanism based on the cumulative observations of failures which is ungrouped data using an infinite failure mean value function G-O model, which is Non-Homogeneous Poisson Process (NHPP) based. Maximum likelihood Estimation method(MLE) approach is used to estimate the unknown parameters of the model.

“Consumer Grade” – the New Gold Standard in Application Reliability and Performance – Scale ARC

For years, organizations reserved the term “enterprise grade” for those hardware and software offerings that delivered the highest levels of service. “Consumer grade,” in contrast, defined a “lesser” quality of technology – good enough to use at home but not up to par for the business world.

Human Factors:

Process Safety Management and Human Performance Reliability – Kestrel Management

California refineries are not alone. Federal changes are on the way, as well, as OSHA considers revisions to its PSM standard.

How to Reduce Human Failure – The Chemical Engineer

There is a recurring number that despite magnificent developments in technical safety doesn’t seem to go away.

Using a Power Plant Simulator to Enhance Human Factors Research – GSE Systems

Today’s nuclear power industry is keen on collaboration. We count on government, university, and privately funded research to continually study how new technology and design affect safe, reliable operations and plant performance.

Sensors:

Making Fog Computing Sensors Clearly Reliable – EDN Network

As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, decentralized, distributed-intelligence concepts such as “fog computing” are taking hold to address the need for lower latencies, improved security, lower power consumption, and higher reliability. Such trends towards a more distributed approach to data processing and storage demands smarter sensors and new wireless sensor network architectures.

Do Optical Sensors Provide Reliable Heart Rate Data? – Design News

Optical heart rate monitors, hailed as a promising new technology when they hit the market a few years ago, are starting to see some backlash.

Research:

Predicting Disk Failures for Reliable Clouds – IBM Research

When IT equipment in data centers fail, valuable information and economic resources are at stake. Downtimes in data centers are notoriously expensive. According to the Emerson Network Power Study, nearly $9,000 US are lost for every minute a data center is missing in action.