EXPRESS

This paper presents EXPRESS, an expert system developed for the automation of reliability studies. The first part consists in the description of the method for static thermohydraulic systems. In this step, the authors define the knowledge representation based on the two inference engines - ALOUETTE and LCR developed by EDF. They explain all the process to construct a fault tree from a topological and functional description of the system. Numerous examples are exhibited in illustration of the method. This is followed by the lessons derived from the studies performed on some safety systems of the PALUEL nuclear plant. The development of the same approach for electric power systems is described, insisting on the difference resulting from the sequential nature of these systems. Finally, they show the main advantages identified during the studies