Automotive Gearbox Design Based on Reliability

A company’s reputation is very closely attached to the reliability of its products. The more reliable a product is, the more likely the company is to have a good reputation. A reliable product may not drastically affect customer satisfaction in a positive manner. However, an unreliable product will definitely attract customer dissatisfaction; thus, high reliability is a quite essential requirement for customer satisfaction. Design for reliability refers to the ability of a product to perform its specified function under service conditions. This paper describes the reliability-based approach used for the design of two-speed automotive transmission systems. The overall reliability of a transmission system will be governed by the reliability of the individual components. To avoid unpredicted failure, the mechanical designs frequently undertake the concept of a safety factor to reduce the probability of failure and, hence, it has been shown with results that reliability has always improved with improved safety values.