FAILURE MODE, EFFECTS AND CRITICALITY ANALYSIS OF MECHANICAL SYSTEMS’ ELEMENTS

Basic concepts and a brief history of the development of Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis - FMECA are given in the introductory part of the paper. In the present considerations, the quantitative FMECA is based on the assumption that the intensity of the element's failure is constant and is mainly applied in electronic systems. Based on the current procedure, taking into account the specificity of the mechanical system's elements in terms of the intensity of the failure, the proposal of the quantitative FMECA of these elements is given. The procedure has been expanded with a step of determining the absolute criticality of the elements from the aspect of reliability and functional safety. The application of the procedure is illustrated through the case of determining the criticality of the elements of the light commercial vehicle's steering system based on exploitation data.