Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams

The FTA diagram sample "Fault tree analysis - Insulin delivery system" was redesigned from the illustration of "CMSI 641: Introduction to Software Engineering. Design of Critical Systems. B.J. Johnson. 2005. Loyola Marymount University".
"Another way of assessing hazards is using fault tree analysis. In this process, each of the identified hazards is covered by a detailed analysis to find out what might cause it. Either inductive or deductive reasoning is applied. In the case of software hazards, the usual focus is to determine faults that will cause the system to fail to deliver a system service, such as a monitoring system. A "fault tree" is constructed to link all the possible situations together, to help identify the interrelationships of the failures, which modules may cause them, and what "trickle-down effects" there might be. Here is an example of a fault tree, as applied to the Insulin delivery system from Sommerville...
Note that this tree is only partially complete, since only the potential software faults are shown on the diagram. The potential failures involving hardware, such as low battery, blood monitor or sensor failure, patient over-exertion or inattention, or medical staff failure are noticeable by their absence.
The fault tree and safety specification processes are two ways of helping with system risk assessment tasks. Once the risks are identified, there are other assessments that need to take place. First, the likelihood of the risk occurrance must be assessed. This is often quantifiable, so numbers may be assigned based on things like MTBF, latency effects, and other known entities. There may be other non-quantifiable contributors to the risk likelihood, however, such that these must be assessed and estimated by experts in the domain. (Don't short-change this process when dealing with critical systems!) Finally, the risk assessment must include the severity of the risk, meaning an estimation of the cost to the project in the event the risk item actually does occur. "Cost to the project" means all associated costs, including schedule delays, human injury, damage to hardware, corruption of data, and so on."
[myweb.lmu.edu/ bjohnson/ cmsi641web/ week15-2.html]
The FTA diagram example "Fault tree analysis - Insulin delivery system" was created using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams solution from the Engineering area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

The vector stencils library "Fault tree analysis diagrams" contains 12 symbols for drawing Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) diagrams.
"Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a top down, deductive failure analysis in which an undesired state of a system is analyzed using Boolean logic to combine a series of lower-level events. This analysis method is mainly used in the fields of safety engineering and reliability engineering to understand how systems can fail, to identify the best ways to reduce risk or to determine (or get a feeling for) event rates of a safety accident or a particular system level (functional) failure. FTA is used in the aerospace, nuclear power, chemical and process, pharmaceutical, petrochemical and other high-hazard industries; but is also used in fields as diverse as risk factor identification relating to social service system failure.
In aerospace, the more general term "system Failure Condition" is used for the "undesired state" / Top event of the fault tree. These conditions are classified by the severity of their effects. The most severe conditions require the most extensive fault tree analysis. These "system Failure Conditions" and their classification are often previously determined in the functional Hazard analysis." [Fault tree analysis. Wikipedia]
The shapes example "Fault tree analysis diagrams" was created using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams solution from the Engineering area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

"Failure analysis is the process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the cause of a failure. It is an important discipline in many branches of manufacturing industry, such as the electronics industry, where it is a vital tool used in the development of new products and for the improvement of existing products. There are many companies which provide services to find the cause of failure in products, devices and in post disaster situations. The failure analysis process relies on collecting failed components for subsequent examination of the cause or causes of failure using a wide array of methods, especially microscopy and spectroscopy. The NDT or nondestructive testing methods (such as Industrial computed tomography scanning) are valuable because the failed products are unaffected by analysis, so inspection always starts using these methods." [Failure analysis. Wikipedia]
The example "Audit failure - Fault tree analysis diagram" was created using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams solution from the Engineering area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

Fault tree analysis diagrams solution extends ConceptDraw PRO software with templates, samples and library of vector stencils for drawing the FTA diagrams.

The FTA diagram example "Hazard analysis" was redesigned from the illustration of the article "Hazard Analysis Methodologies" from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) website.
"A fault tree analysis is a quantitative assessment of all of the undesirable outcomes, such as a toxic gas release or explosion, which could result from a specific initiating event. It begins with a graphic representation (using logic symbols) of all possible sequences of events that could result in an incident. The resulting diagram looks like a tree with many branches — each branch listing the sequential events (failures) for different independent paths to the top event. Probabilities (using failure rate data) are assigned to each event and then used to calculate the probability of occurrence of the undesired event. ...
This technique is particularly useful in evaluating the effect of alternative actions on reducing the probability of occurrence of the undesired event."
[osha.gov/ SLTC/ etools/ safetyhealth/ mod4_ tools_ methodologies.html]
The FTA diagram example "Hazard analysis" was created using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams solution from the Engineering area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

The accident analysis diagram example "Accident analytic tree" was redesigned from the picture 7-14 from the "DOE Workbook. Conducting Accident Investigations. Revision 2."
"Analytic tree analyses are well defined, useful methods that graphically depict, from beginning to end, the events and conditions preceding and immediately following an accident. An analytic tree is a means of organizing information that helps the investigator conduct a deductive analysis of any system (human, equipment, or environmental) to determine critical paths of success and failure. Results from this analysis identify the details and interrelationships that must be considered to prevent the oversights, errors, and omissions that lead to failures. In accident investigations, this type of analysis can consist of both failure paths and success paths, and can lead to neutral, negative, or positive conclusions regarding accident severity.
TIP.
An analytic tree enables the user to:
(1) Systematically identify the possible paths from events to outcome.
(2) Display a graphical record of the analytical process.
(3) Identify management system weaknesses and strengths."
[homer.ornl.gov/ sesa/ corporatesafety/ aip/ docs/ workbook/ Rev2/ chpt7/ chapt7.htm]
The FTA diagram example "Accident analytic tree" was created using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams solution from the Engineering area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.