Content Spotlight – Coaxial RF Protector Reliability (MTBF) Calculations

Have you ever wondered how to calculate Mean Time Between Failure [MTBF] estimates for a coaxial RF surge arrester?   How about whether there is a significant difference between MTBF figures for different types of protection technology, i.e. Gas Discharge Tube vs. Quarter Wavelength Shorted Stub arrestors?  Do you know how to use MIL-HDBK-217?

Today’s Content Spotlight focuses on a NexTek white paper which reviews how MTBF calculations can be made for a given arrestor, provides some complete examples of going through a full characterization and calculation cycle, and then provides a range of MTBF figures for NexTek’s standard ranges of coaxial arrestors.  These figures cover the major product lines which include the PTC series of fixed gas discharge tube units, the PTR series of replaceable gas discharge tube arrestors, and the QSS+QWS series of Quarter Wavelength Stub solutions.

MTBF calculations are an essential requirement at the system review and maintainence planning stages of many critical systems.  Generally, these calculations are meant to give a system engineer a reasonable idea of the average operating time between failures that can be expected for a given piece of equipment that is operating in a given environment.

In addition, there is a separate whitepaper (an addendum, of sorts) which gives a similar range of MTBF calculations for the FPL series of multistage GPS/Global Navigation protection.

Read More

Coaxial Protector Reliability – PTC, PTR, QSS/QWS Series Arrestors (.PDF)

Coaxial Protector Reliability – FPL (GPS) Series Arrestors (.PDF)