Reliability model of gear with correlated failure modes based on joint distribution

In this paper, a precise reliability model for gear with correlated failure modes is presented. Firstly, physical models of stress and strength are set up against two main failure modes of a gear respectively. Then, the corresponding performance functions to the two failure modes are obtained according to stressstrength interference theory regarding randomness of variables in physical models of stress and strength. Furthermore, joint distribution of the two performance functions is deduced by Total Probability Theorem considering the correlation of random variables. So, reliability of a gear with correlated failure modes can be computed based on the joint distribution. Finally, an example is given and in this example the precise reliability model based on joint distribution and the traditional reliability model without considering the correlation of failure modes, are respectively adopted to calculate reliability of a gear. The calculation results are compared with that by Monte Carlo simulation and the compared results show that the gear's reliability obtained by considering correlation of failure modes based on joint distribution is more accurate than that by the traditional model without considering the correlation of failure modes.