Case study: application of contemporary reliability tools to the development of retrofit electronics

A case study of the successful application of reliability and maintainability principles is presented. Most of the current techniques for design evaluation, part selection, environmental stress screening, and reliability testing were applied in a cost-effective manner. Relative costs and pay back are compared for the different reliability-enhancing techniques. A high-reliability functional item replacement for the Torpedo Mark 48 ADCAP was developed. This device is known as the warhead electronics system (WES). The WES had to perform all of the existing function of the older designs it replaces, fit in the same form factor, and provide identical performance to the two devices it would replace. The WES had to be more readily repaired, supportable for the next 20 years, and easily enhanced with future performance improvements. Since this device is warhead related, it had to perform these functions with very high reliability. These objectives were all satisfactorily achieved despite a very restrictive schedule and funding constraints