Mean time between failures

In engineering and telecommunication, the term mean time between failures (MTBF) has the following meanings:

1. An indicator of expected system reliability calculated on a statistical basis from the known failure rates of various components of the system.

   Note: MTBF is usually expressed in hours.

2. Of a system, over a long performance measurement period, the measurement period divided by the number of failures that have occurred during the measurement period.
3. For population of items, during a measurement period, the total functioning life of the population of items divided by the total number of failures within the population during the measurement period.

Note 1: The total functioning life of the population may be calculated as the summation of the operating life of every item in the population over the measurement period. When computing the MTBF, any measure of operating life may be used, such as time, cycles, kilometers, or events.

Note 2: For example, if a total of 1,000 events, such as data transfers, radio transmissions, or system boots, occurs in a population of items during a measurement period of 100 hours and there are a total of 10 failures among the entire population, the MTBF for each item is (1000)(100)/10 = 10⁴ hours.

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C