Encountering a problem or error in the final stages of providing products or services increases costs and delays scheduling. The key task is to ensure quality and reliability in the early stages of the production process and prevent errors from occurring from the beginning. Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is one of the tools for identifying potential problems and their impact on products and services. The conventional FMEA technique has been criticized extensively due to its disadvantages. In this study, the concepts of uncertainty and reliability are considered simultaneously. The processes of weighting risk factors, prioritizing failures by using the stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA)–gray relational analysis (GRA) integrated method based on Ζ-number theory and complete prioritization of failures are implemented. Crucial management indices, such as cost and time, are considered in addition to severity, occurrence and detection factors along with assigning symmetric form of the weights to them. This, in turn, increases the interpretability of results and reduces the decision-maker’s subjectivity in risk prioritization. The developed model is implemented on solar panel data with 19 failure modes determined by the FMEA team. Results show that the proposed approach provides a more complete and realistic prioritization of failures than conventional FMEA and fuzzy GRA methods do.

This study focuses on failure response and energy absorption of woven ramie epoxy square composite tubes when exposed to the axial quasi-static compression test. Hand lay-up technique was used to prepare the rectangular composite tubes composed of 12 layers of ramie fabric with a thickness of 1.7 mm and 50-, 80-, and 120-mm-long tubes. The measured parameters were specific energy absorption, energy absorption, and peak load. The total energy absorption increased with the increase in the length of the tubes. The failure mode of the tested tubes was examined, and the mid-length and local buckling were considered as the main sources of failure. The woven natural ramie was used in the textiles for years. However, the results of this paper can be significant because of the limited research employing woven ramie as reinforcement for composites.

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