Failure resistance is an indicator of limit that refers to the power or capacity of a mechanism, structure or system to resist, or withstand failure. This is determined at time of designing of the structure/system which functions successfully within that limit without any problem , fault, or breakdown. However, if the limit is exceeded the failure resistance decreases resulting in functional failure or break-down of the system.
So failure here refers to both potential failure as well as functional failure.
In connection with this, you may be interested to know that there is a metric, often used in computer harware manufacture (and maybe other sorts of manufacture): 'MTBF' - mean time between failures.
Thanks to everybody!
"Failure" is still such a tricky word to me!
Sometimes when we speak about failures they are just little cracks, a sort of "damage" to a product, and sometimes, they denote "total destruction".
And it all is "a failure"!
Perhaps you could think of failure as the opposite of success. The 'success' of a mechanical structure can range from 'absence of even the slightest imperfection' to 'just managing to stay up until the engineer's out of sight'. ;-)