The GoldSim Reliability Module is intended for use by engineers, scientists, researchers and students who are interested in understanding and predicting the reliability and risk of complex systems, and the interaction of such systems with the outside world.
The software itself, although relatively complex, can be mastered by anyone familiar with the basic functions of a personal computer and the Windows operating system. The key requirements for applying the Reliability Module are a clear understanding of the physical system being modeled; and a basic understanding of uncertainty analysis and probability theory:
•Because the software was designed to be extremely flexible, it intentionally imposes few constraints on the inputs that you define. Hence, it is your responsibility to ensure that the system being defined is consistent and realistic. As a result, the most important requirement is that you have a clear understanding of the features, processes, failure modes and events controlling the behavior of the system to be modeled. This should include a good understanding of the fundamentals of reliability modeling and risk analysis.
•Although GoldSim can be run in a deterministic manner (i.e., with no specified uncertainty in input parameters), one of the key features of GoldSim is its ability to explicitly represent such uncertainty through the use of probability distributions. In order to do so, the user must have at least a basic understanding of the representation and propagation of uncertainty. Appendix A of the GoldSim User's Guide provides a brief primer on this topic, along with suggestions for further reading.