Fault tree analysis: concepts and techniques

Concepts and techniques of fault tree analysis have been developed over the past decade and now predictions from this type analysis are important considerations in the design of many systems such as aircraft, ships and their electronic systems, missiles, and nuclear reactor systems. Routine, hardware-oriented fault tree construction can be automated; however, considerable effort is needed in this area to get the methodology into production status. When this status is achieved, the entire analysis of hardware systems will be automated except for the system definition step. Automated analysis is not undesirable; to the contrary, when verified on adequately complex systems, automated analysis could well become a routine analysis. It could also provide an excellent start for a more in-depth fault tree analysis that includes environmental effects, common mode failure, and human errors. The automated analysis is extremely fast and frees the analyst from the routine hardware-oriented fault tree construction, as well as eliminates logic errors and errors of oversight in this part of the analysis. Automated analysis then affords the analyst a powerful tool to allow his prime efforts to be devoted to unearthing more subtle aspects of the modes of failure of the system