Automated Component Fault Tree Generation from Continuous Function Charts

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Solution Overview

Problem

The generation of component fault trees for complex safety-critical systems is cumbersome and prone to errors due to manual creation by safety engineers, which hinders efficient safety assessment and analysis.

Innovation Solution

An automated method and apparatus that generate component fault trees from continuous function charts by interconnecting inports and outports based on unique names, and propagating failure modes through internal failure paths, using a generic mapping between connector types and failure types, facilitating fault tree analysis and root cause analysis.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If component fault trees are generated manually by safety engineers, then the analysis can be performed, but the process is cumbersome and prone to errors

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccuracy of safety analysisVSAvoidease of generating component fault tree

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The system automatically generates component fault trees by interfacing with existing development tools and extracting information from development artifacts, enabling self-service generation without manual safety engineer intervention for the creation process

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The manual mechanical process of creating fault trees by safety engineers is replaced with an automated computer-based system that extracts information from development artifacts and generates fault trees algorithmically

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Productivity

If component fault trees are generated manually, then customization is possible, but the process is time-consuming and inefficient

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveefficiency of safety analysisVSAvoidtime for generating component fault tree

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary extraction of information from development artifacts during the development phase, so that when safety analysis is needed, the component fault tree can be generated quickly from pre-extracted data

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system creates copies of information from development artifacts and development models to generate component fault trees, avoiding the need to manually recreate information from scratch

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

3Reliability

If manual generation is used, then flexibility in handling complex systems is maintained, but error rate increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveerror-free generationVSAvoidcomplexity of safety-critical system

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system acts as an intermediary between development tools/artifacts and safety analysis requirements, automatically translating development information into component fault tree format, thereby reducing manual intervention and errors while handling complex systems

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS10061670B2Method and apparatus for automatically generating a component fault tree of a safety-critical system

Publication Date: 2018.08.28 SIEMENS AG

AI summary

An apparatus includes an input that receives a continuous function chart for each component of the investigated safety-critical system. A processor generates a corresponding component fault tree element. Inports and outports of the component fault tree element are generated and interconnected based on unique names of the inputs and outputs of the corresponding continuous function chart of the respective system component. Input failure modes and output failure modes are generated based on generic mapping between connector types of the continuous function chart and failure types of failure modes of the component fault tree element. The input failure modes of a component fault tree element are connected to output failure modes of the component fault tree element via internal failure propagation paths based on interconnected function blocks of the continuous function chart of the respective system component. An output outputs the generated component fault tree of the safety-critical system.