Fault-tree analysis: a knowledge-engineering approach

This paper deals with the application of knowledge engineering and a methodology for the assessment and measurement of reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety of industrial systems using fault-tree representation. Object oriented structures, production rules representing the expert´s heuristics, algorithms, and database structures are the basic elements of the system. The blackboard architecture of the system supports qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the fault tree. A fuzzy set approach analyzes problems with few failure data or much fuzziness or imprecision. Fault-tree analysis is a knowledge acquisition structure that has been extensively explored by knowledge engineers. Reliability engineers can apply the techniques developed by this area of computer science to: (1) improve the data acquisition process; (2) explore the benefits of object oriented expert systems for reliability applications; (3) integrate the several sources of knowledge into a unique system; (4) explore the approximate reasoning to handle uncertainty; and (5) develop hybrid solution strategies combining expert heuristics, conventional procedures, and available failure data