Abstract :
Fault tree methods and reliability engineering techniques are used at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) principally to evaluate reactor protective and safeguard systems. The particular analytical technique called "Kinetic Tree Theory", with the associated computer programs, is used to obtain quantitative probabilistic characteristics regarding the safety and reliability of these systems. Once the fault tree or block diagram is drawn, the Kinetic Tree Theory technique automatically yields detailed time-dependent information forevery component, for every minimal cut set (critical path) and for the system itself. The computer time needed for this detailed analysis is negligible. In actual application, the fault tree and reliability engineering techniques, with the quantitative evaluations by Kinetic Tree Theory, have yielded results which verify the practical value of these types of safety and reliability analyses.
