An enhanced component connection method for conversion of fault trees to binary decision diagrams

Remenyte-Prescott, Rasa and Andrews, John (2008) An enhanced component connection method for conversion of fault trees to binary decision diagrams. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 93 (10). pp. 1543-1550. ISSN 0951-8320

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Abstract

Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is widely applied to assess the failure probability of industrial systems. Many computer packages are available which are based on conventional Kinetic Tree Theory methods. When dealing with large (possibly non-coherent) fault trees, the limitations of the technique in terms of accuracy of the solutions and the efficiency of the processing time becomes apparent. Over recent years the Binary Decision Diagram (BDD) method has been developed that solves fault trees and overcomes the disadvantages of the conventional FTA approach. First of all, a fault tree for a particular system failure mode is constructed and then converted to a BDD for analysis. This paper analyses alternative methods for the fault tree to BDD conversion process.

For most fault tree to BDD conversion approaches the basic events of the fault tree are placed in an ordering. This can dramatically affect the size of the final BDD and the success of qualitative and quantitative analyses of the system. A set of rules are then applied to each gate in the fault tree to generate the BDD. An alternative approach can also be used, where BDD constructs for each of the gate types are first built and then merged to represent a parent gate. A powerful and efficient property, sub-node sharing, is also incorporated in the enhanced method proposed in this paper. Finally a combined approach is developed taking the best features of the alternative methods. The efficiency of the techniques is analysed and discussed.

Item Type: Article
RIS ID: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1016014
Additional Information: NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Reliability Engineering and System Safety. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 93(10), (2008), doi: 10.1016/j.ress.2007.09.001
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Engineering > Department of Civil Engineering
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2007.09.001
Depositing User: Remenyte-Prescott, Dr Rasa
Date Deposited: 05 Aug 2014 17:38
Last Modified: 04 May 2020 20:27
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/3315

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