A Modular Approach to Fault Tree Analysis

Technical Report · Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6052603· OSTI ID:6052603

Olmes, James ^[1]; Wolf, Lothar ^[1]

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1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

An analytical method to describe fault tree diagrams in terms of their modular composition is developed. Fault tree structures are characterized by recursively relating the top tree event to all its basic component inputs through a set of equations defining each of the modules for the fault tree. It is shown that such a modular description is an extremely valuable tool for making a quantitative analysis of fault trees. The modularization methodology has been implemented into the PL-MOD computer code, written in PL/1 language, which is capable of modularizing fault trees containing replicated components and replicated modular gates. PL-MOD in addition can handle mutually exclusive inputs and explicit higher order symmetric (k-out of - n) gates.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USNRC
• OSTI ID: 6052603
• Report Number(s): MITNE--209; NUREG/CR--0670
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
220900* -- Nuclear Reactor Technology-- Reactor Safety
ACCIDENTS
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FAULT TREE ANALYSIS
POWER REACTORS
REACTOR ACCIDENTS
REACTOR SAFETY
REACTORS
SAFETY
SYSTEM FAILURE ANALYSIS
SYSTEMS ANALYSIS