Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a type of failure analysis in which an undesired state of a system is examined. This analysis method is mainly used in safety engineering and reliability engineering to understand how systems can fail, to identify the best ways to reduce risk and to determine (or get a feeling for) event rates of a safety accident or a particular system level (functional) failure. FTA is used in the aerospace, nuclear power, chemical and process, pharmaceutical, petrochemical and other high-hazard industries; but is also used in fields as diverse as risk factor identification relating to social service system failure. FTA is also used in software engineering for debugging purposes and is closely related to cause-elimination technique used to detect bugs.
In aerospace, the more general term "system failure condition" is used for the "undesired state" / top event of the fault tree. These conditions are classified by the severity of their effects. The most severe conditions require the most extensive fault tree analysis. These system failure conditions and their classification are often previously determined in the functional hazard analysis.
Fault tree analysis can be used to:
understand the logic leading to the top event / undesired state.
show compliance with the (input) system safety / reliability requirements.
prioritize the contributors leading to the top event- creating the critical equipment/parts/events lists for different importance measures
monitor and control the safety performance of the complex system (e.g., is a particular aircraft safe to fly when fuel valve x malfunctions? For how long is it allowed to fly with the valve malfunction?).
minimize and optimize resources.
assist in designing a system. The FTA can be used as a design tool that helps to create (output / lower level) requirements.
function as a diagnostic tool to identify and correct causes of the top event. It can help with the creation of diagnostic manuals / processes.
Fault tree analysis (FTA) was originally developed in 1962 at Bell Laboratories by H.
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Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time. The reliability function is theoretically defined as the probability of success at time t, which is denoted R(t).
Safety engineering is an engineering discipline which assures that engineered systems provide acceptable levels of safety. It is strongly related to industrial engineering/systems engineering, and the subset system safety engineering. Safety engineering assures that a life-critical system behaves as needed, even when components fail. Analysis techniques can be split into two categories: qualitative and quantitative methods. Both approaches share the goal of finding causal dependencies between a hazard on system level and failures of individual components.
In science and engineering, root cause analysis (RCA) is a method of problem solving used for identifying the root causes of faults or problems. It is widely used in IT operations, manufacturing, telecommunications, industrial process control, accident analysis (e.g., in aviation, rail transport, or nuclear plants), medicine (for medical diagnosis), healthcare industry (e.g., for epidemiology), etc. Root cause analysis is a form of inductive (first create a theory [root] based on empirical evidence [causes]) and deductive (test the theory [underlying causal mechanisms] with empirical data) inference.
This course offers students the opportunity to acquire the methods and tools needed for modern risk management from an engineering perspective. It focuses on actors, resources and objectives, while en
Le cours vise à donner les outils permettant d'appréhender de manière fondée et scientifique la question de l'analyse et de la gestion des risques technologiques et naturels, avec une attention partic
This course consists of two parts:
architecture of automation systems, hands-on lab
handling of faults and failures in real-time systems, including fault-tolerant computing
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