Method of Computer-Aided FTA (Fault Tree Analysis) in Reliability Design and Development: Analyzing FTA Using the Support System in Actual Design Process

The authors propose computerized support for Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) based on new knowledge management in product design. FTA is a method of analyzing and visualizing the causes of a fault event by Fault Tree diagram (FT diagram) that has a tree structure with logical step. Many methods of support for FTA are studied, but they are not effective for our FTA. We have developed the system of Computer-Aided FTA (FTAid) for design engineers by the collaborative research group (JATCO Ltd, The University of Tokyo and National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology). We reported this system in SAE2012 World Congress. After that, the knowledge management for FTA and new functions of this system have been studied continuously. In this paper we report that FT diagrams used FTAid improved to be useful for design engineers are analyzed based on individual qualification and skill of FTA, we study improvement of FTAid and the FTA education system.