Improving Reliability and Reducing Risk by Separation

The paper introduces the method of separation for improving reliability and reducing technical risk and provides insight into the various mechanisms through which the method of separation attains this goal. A comprehensive classification of techniques for improving reliability and reducing risk, based on the method of separation has been proposed for the first time. The concept ‘stochastic separation' of random events and methods for providing stochastic separation have been introduced. It is shown that separation of properties is an efficient technique for compensating the drawbacks associated with a selection based on homogeneous properties. It is also demonstrated that the logical separation can be an efficient and low-cost risk reduction technique. Finally, the paper demonstrates that the traditional reliability measure ‘safety margin' is misleading and should not be used as a measure of the relative separation between load and strength.