Engineering Services and Analysis – Fault Tree Analysis
Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is used to evaluate safety and reliability in design, development, and operation of various products and systems. FTAs are used to translate the failure behavior of a product or system into a visual diagram that displays system relationships and root cause failure paths. FTAs provide a concise, visual representation of the various combinations of possible events/failures inherent in a product or system that can result in a predefined and undesirable event. FTA is most often used for:
- Identifying safety critical components
- Verifying product requirements
- Assessing product risk
- Investigating accidents/incidents
- Evaluating design changes
- Displaying the causes and consequences of events
- Identifying common-cause failures
FTAs can be either qualitative or quantitative in nature. They start with a basic end effect or event and then determine the specific causes of the event. FTAs are based on rules and logic symbols from probability theory and Boolean algebra and use a top-down approach to generate a logic model.