Fault tree analysis history, applications, purposes, and capabilities.
Definitions.
Fault tree analysis as a predictive tool.
How fault tree analysis can predict the probability of an undesired
condition.
Fault tree analysis applied to complex system failures.
Fault tree analysis, Ishikawa diagram, and FMEA comparisons.
Related military and commercial standards.
Case study. Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Fault Tree Analysis Approach.
Defining the undesired system condition or failure condition.
The concept of a top undesired event.
Inductive versus deductive logic.
Fault tree analysis symbology.
Defining the fault tree analysis top tier.
The concept of gates and events.
F-16 Air Combat Fighter case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Fault Tree Analysis Events.
Command events.
The top undesiredevent.
Basic failure events.
Normal events.
Human error events.
Undeveloped events.
Criteria for assigning undeveloped events.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Fault Tree Analysis Gates.
OR gates.
AND gates.
INHIBIT gates.
Exclusive OR gates.
Sequential AND gates.
INHIBIT conditions.
Case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Fault Tree Analysis Construction.
Relationships between logic operators and events.
Top undesired events.
The top tier. Developing fault tree logic.
Fault tree tiers.
Fault tree construction.
Navigating through the system.
The advantages of navigation-based fault tree construction versus listing all events on a single tier.
Case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Advanced Fault Tree Analysis Construction.
State of the part and state of the system considerations.
Using state of the part considerations to identify additional events based on environmental, command, and component failure mechanisms.
Case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Fault Tree Analysis Quantification.
Probability and statistics applied to fault tree analysis.
Failure rate and probability considerations for basic failures, normal events, human errors, undeveloped events, and inhibit conditions.
Mean Time Between Failures, failure rates, and probability relationships.
Operating/mission time considerations.
Dormant versus active failure rate considerations.
Failure rate sources.
Environmental effects on failure rates.
Determining event, branch, and top undesired event probability of occurrence.
Case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Root Cause Failure Analysis.
Fault tree applications to the root cause failure analysis process.
Component versus system failures.
Defining the failure.
The root cause failure analysis approach.
Fault tree analysis, failure mode assessment and assignment matrices, supporting analysis, and managing the failure analysis.
Case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Redundancy Considerations.
Using fault tree analysis to identify single point failures or other conditions that can defeat redundant circuitry and other fail-safe design approaches.
Case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Fault Tree Cut Sets.
Cut set and minimal cut set definitions.
Identifying fault tree analysis cutsets.
Cut set order.
Cut set and reliability block diagram comparisons.
Using cut sets to identify single failure points.
Case study.
Group activity.
Fault Tree Analysis: Fault Tree Analysis Software.
Manually generated versus computer generated fault tree analysis.
Computer aided fault tree analysis (CAFTA).
Web-based software.
Using Visio for fault tree analysis. Using Excel for quantifying fault tree analysis.
Other available fault tree analysis software.
Case study.
Fault Tree Analysis: Post-Fault-Tree Activities and Course Wrap-Up.
Managing fault tree findings.
Fault tree analysis as an engineering development risk mitigation tool.
