Citation

Lees FP, Andow PK, Murphy CP. Reliab. Eng. 1980; 1(2): 149-163.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1980, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0143-8174(80)90006-2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

There exist a number of techniques which are used to investigate the propagation of faults in process plants. These include failure modes and effects analysis, hazard and operability studies, fault trees, event trees and cause-consequence diagrams, and process computer alarm analysis. There is, therefore, a generic problem of representing the fault propagation structure of the plant. The problem is exemplified by that of creating a computer code of fault tree synthesis. An important aspect of the problem is the definition and provision of the basic event/fault information. The types of event/fault information required are reviewed and the techniques of providing the information are discussed with special reference to two types of model, functional equation models and mini-fault trees.