Fault Tree Analysis

● In 1962, Bell Telephone Laboratories designed safeguards for the intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBM) system for the US air force called the Minuteman System. Safety was vital
for such a complex and dangerous technology. To improve their reliability analysis, Bell
Laboratories created the fault tree analysis method.

● Why FT
● Uses of FT
● Guidelines for FT

September ‘23
By Vishwanand V 1
 understand the logic leading to the top event / undesired state. show
Objectives compliance with the (input) system safety / reliability requirements

● To find probability of undesired event happening

● To find the basic events for the undersired events
● To find the combination / interface of events leading to undesired events
● To find the independence requirement
● Understand the minimum combination required to create a harm/hazard
● Also path set ( cut set ) assessments for regulations find top probability if one or more
events happens.

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Qualitative FTA

● Minimal cut sets (MCS) help identify the vulnerabilities of a system. If an FT contains a
small number of components or a set of elements with a high likelihood of failure, the
system would be deemed unreliable. MCS identifies these sets of elements in a fault tree. If
you can reduce the probability of failure of some components or add redundancies, you will
improve the system’s reliability.
● Minimal path sets (MPS) will help you determine the robustness of a system. It tries to
identify the minimum set of components that can keep the system functional. After those
elements are identified, you can spend time working to lower the chance of them failing.
This increases the overall reliability of the system.
● Common cause failures (CCF) determine if multiple failures can be caused by a single
element. The components identified through CCF are considered critical components. Your
team needs to make sure these components are routinely inspected and replaced (as
necessary). A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) like Limble can
plan and schedule maintenance of these critical components.

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Quantitative FTA

● Stochastic measures give you the probability of failure for the system.
● Importance measures assign the level of importance that a cut set or path is to the reliability
of the whole system.
● Allocation of target to subsystems

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 FTA – basic rules

1. Assume a system state and identify and clearly document state the top level undesired event(s). This is often accomplished by
using the PHL or PHA. Alternatively, design documentation such as schematics, flow diagrams, FBDs documentation may
reviewed.
2. Develop the upper levels of the trees via a top-down process. That is determine the intermediate failures and combinations of
failures or events that are the minimum to cause the next higher level event to occur. The logical relationships are graphically
generated as described below using standardized FTA logic symbols.
3. Continue the top-down process until the root causes for each branch is identified and/or until further decomposition is not
considered necessary.
4. Assign probabilities of failure to the lowest level event in each branch of the tree. This may be through predictions, allocations,
or historical data.
5. Establish a Boolean equation for the tree using Boolean logic and evaluate the probability of the undesired top level event.
6. Compare to the system level requirement. If it the requirement is not met, implement corrective action. Corrective actions vary
from redesign to analysis refinement.
Gates

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 Connect the Gate ??????

50% Loss of
Power Failure
cooling

Main Power Change over Back up

HVAC 1 failure HVAC 2 failure Failure switch Failure failure

FSD failure Oven Overheat

Temp sensor
Smoke sensor Communication Oven turned on
Heat sensor fails failure
failure failure

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Construction of Fault tree

● I-N-S Concept
● SS-SC concept
● P-S-C concept

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Alternative to FTs

● Boolean algebra
● Markov analysis
● Event tree analysis (ETA)
● Dependence Diagram : success tree analysis (STA)

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Tools for FTA

● CAFTA
● Relex ( PTC windchill )
● Faulttree ++ ( isograph)
● Blocksim
● Aralia

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Types of FTA

● Dynamic FTA: Dynamic Fault Trees (DFT) extend standard fault trees by modeling complex
system components’ behaviors and interactions.
● Repairable FTA: Repairable Fault Trees (RFT) enhance the FTA model by introducing the
possibility to describe complex dependent repairs of system components.
● Extended FTA: Takes multi-state components and random probabilities into consideration.
● Fuzzy FTA: Takes unreliable factors that are difficult to predict (like the wind or weather) into
account with a complex mathematical concept called fuzzy set theory.
● State-event FTA: SEFT Is used to analyze dynamic behavior that ordinary fault trees cannot
model.

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References

Compiled using following sources:

● http://www.bassengineering.com/FTA.htm
● http://www.fault-tree.net/papers/ericson-fta-history.pdf
● http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/aviation/risk_management/ss_handbook/media/Cha
● p9_1200.pdf
● http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?
● AD=ADA303377&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
● http://syque.com/quality_tools/toolbook/FTA/example.htm

● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEShNJX3kcg – IIT Kharagpur lecture

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