Fault Tree Analysis
“Faultless to a fault.” -Robert Browning
Albert Hsu
Introduction
Fault identification, correction and tolerance to
improve design
Fault Tree Analysis
“A method to decompose it and look for situation
that might lead to failure” (Software Engineering)
Displayed the logical path from effect to cause
Fault Tree Analysis, Fall 2006
The Fault Tree
Begin Fault Analysis by identifying possible failures
in design operation or maintenance
Next build a graph whose nodes are failures
Single contents
System function
Entire system
Edge = relationship among nodes by logical
descriptor (AND,OR)
Fault Tree Analysis, Fall 2006
The Fault Tree
Figure 5.19 Portion of power plant control system
Fault Tree Analysis, Fall 2006
Cut-set Tree
From Fault tree to cut-set tree
To find single points of failure in complex tree
Figure 5.20 Cut-set tree generated form the fault tree
Fault Tree Analysis, Fall 2006
Fixing the Failure
Removeit
Add components or conditions topreventthe
input condition that cause the fault to be
executed
Add components that will recoverfrom the
damage the failure will cause
Fault Tree Analysis, Fall 2006
Some faults…
Time-consuming in constructing the graphs
Many systems involve many dependencies
Difficult to detect inconsistencies
Difficult to focus only on the most critical parts of
the design on high coupling systems
Not always easy to spot
Fault Tree Analysis, Fall 2006