Minimal Cut Sets with Time Dependencies Analysis

Abstract

Fault tree analysis (FTA) is one of the most frequently used techniques for safety analysis. The result of such an analysis are minimal cut sets (MCSs). Occurrence of all the events from MCS is a necessary and sufficient condition to cause a fault (hazard, dangerous situation). Thus, both the design and implementation of the system should prevent or minimize the probability of such situation inter aliausing the knowledgeof theMCSs. Standard FT cannot express time dependencies between events. This possibilitygives usFT with time dependencies (FTTD). The analysis of the FTTD gives us also MCSs, but extended to the time dependencies as well. This paper proposes a way to create such sets and partial automatization of analysis for specific cases provided.