Component-Oriented Fault Tree Assembly for Aircraft Safety Analysis
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current safety analysis tools for complex systems like aircraft are not intuitive for end users and struggle to provide comprehensive safety certification deliverables, such as minimal cut sets and system-level fault trees, which are essential for validating safety and reliability.
Innovation Solution
A safety-analysis system that models complex systems using component-oriented fault trees, allowing for the development of fault propagation models that integrate component fault-based models into a system fault-based model, enabling visualization of fault propagation and safety certification without requiring unintuitive programming languages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional manual safety analysis methods are used, then safety analysts can perform failure analysis, but the breadth of coverage is limited and labor costs are high
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complex system into individual components, each with its own fault tree model. This segmentation enables automated assembly of component models into system-level fault trees, significantly expanding analysis coverage while reducing manual labor. The system divides the safety analysis task into component-level modeling and automated system-level synthesis.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an automated model assembly system that acts as an intermediary between component fault trees and system-level safety analysis. This intermediary automatically combines component models using Boolean logic to generate system fault trees, eliminating the need for manual analysis of entire system configurations and dramatically improving productivity.
2Ease of operation
If fault propagation models are developed using current tools, then failure propagation can be visualized, but the tools are less than intuitive and require programming languages
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses graphical user interface elements that copy familiar system design representations (such as block diagrams and component layouts) to create fault propagation models. This allows safety analysts to build models using the same intuitive visual language used in system design, eliminating the need for specialized programming languages while maintaining accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal modeling environment that handles both system design representation and safety analysis modeling within the same graphical interface. The tool can represent system architecture, component failures, and fault propagation using a single intuitive graphical language, eliminating the need to switch between different programming languages or toolsets.
3Reliability
If MBSA tools are used to perform failure propagation simulation, then safety assessment is improved, but they cannot easily provide minimal cut sets and system-level fault trees
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the capabilities of failure propagation simulation with traditional fault tree analysis methods. The system combines automated model-based safety analysis with the ability to generate minimal cut sets and system-level fault trees in a unified platform, providing both dynamic simulation and static analysis deliverables without requiring separate tools.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where the automated model assembly system continuously generates system fault trees from component models and provides them back to the safety analyst for verification. This feedback loop ensures that the generated models maintain high reliability while providing all necessary certification deliverables including minimal cut sets and system-level fault trees.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
A safety-analysis system 100 for a complex system such as an aircraft includes a system modeler 104 and model-analysis system 106. The system modeler 104 is configured to receive component fault-based models of respective components of which a system is composed, such as from a library of component fault-based models in storage. The component fault-based models include transfer functions expressed as fault trees 500 each of which describes behavior of a respective component in an event of a failure of the respective component or of an external input 404 to the component. The system modeler 104 is also configured to assemble the component fault-based models into a system fault-based model of the system, with the system fault-based model including a transfer function expressed as an assembly of the fault trees 500 of the component fault-based models. The model-analysis system 106, then, is configured to perform a safety analysis using the system fault-based model.