AS IEC 61025—2008

IEC 61025, Ed. 2.0 (2006)

AS IEC 61025—2008

Australian Standard®

Fault tree analysis (FTA)

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 This Australian Standard® was prepared by Committee QR-005, Dependability. It was
approved on behalf of the Council of Standards Australia on 16 June 2008.
This Standard was published on 28 July 2008.

The following are represented on Committee QR-005:

• AirServices Australia
• Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
• Australian Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association
• Australian Industry Group
• Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation
• Australian Organisation for Quality
• Certification Interests (Australia)
• Department of Defence (Australia)
• Energy Networks Association
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• Engineers Australia
• The University of New South Wales

This Standard was issued in draft form for comment as DR 08034.

Standards Australia wishes to acknowledge the participation of the expert individuals that
contributed to the development of this Standard through their representation on the
Committee and through the public comment period.

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Standards Australia welcomes suggestions for improvements, and encourages readers to

notify us immediately of any apparent inaccuracies or ambiguities. Contact us via email at
mail@standards.org.au, or write to Standards Australia, GPO Box 476, Sydney, NSW 2001.
 AS IEC 61025—2008

Australian Standard®

Fault tree analysis (FTA)

This is a free 7 page sample. Access the full version online.

First published as AS IEC 61025—2008.

COPYRIGHT
© Standards Australia
All rights are reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or copied in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without the written
permission of the publisher.
Published by Standards Australia GPO Box 476, Sydney, NSW 2001, Australia
ISBN 0 7337 8836 X
 ii

PREFACE

This Standard was prepared by the Standards Australia Committee QR-005, Dependability.
The objective of this Standard is to describe fault tree analysis and provide guidance on its
application to reliability modelling.
This Standard is identical with, and has been reproduced from IEC 61025 Ed.2.0 (2006), Fault
tree analysis (FTA), which is part of a suite of Standards developed by the IEC Technical
Committee IEC/TC 56, Dependability, and is suitable for use in conjunction with the
AS IEC 60300 series of dependability management Standards.
As this Standard is reproduced from an International Standard, the following applies:
(a) Its number does not appear on each page of text and its identity is shown only on the
cover and title page.
(b) In the source text ‘this International Standard’ should read ‘this Australian Standards’.
(c) A full point should be substituted for a comma when referring to a decimal marker.
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The terms ‘normative’ and ‘informative’ are used to define the application of the annex to
which they apply. A normative annex is an integral part of a standard, whereas an informative
annex is only for information and guidance.
 iii

CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... iv

1 Scope .............................................................................................................................. 1
2 Normative references ....................................................................................................... 1
3 Terms and definitions....................................................................................................... 1
4 Symbols ........................................................................................................................... 4
5 General ............................................................................................................................ 5
5.1 Fault tree description and structure ......................................................................... 5
5.2 Objectives............................................................................................................... 5
5.3 Applications ............................................................................................................ 6
5.4 Combinations with other reliability analysis techniques ........................................... 7
5.4.1 Combination of FTA and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) ........... 7
5.4.2 Combination of FTA and event tree analysis (ETA) ..................................... 7
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5.4.3 Combination of FTA and Markov analysis.................................................... 8

5.4.4 Combination of FTA and binary decision diagram (BDD) techniques ........... 8
5.4.5 Combination with the reliability block diagram ............................................. 8
6 Development and evaluation ............................................................................................ 9
6.1 General considerations ........................................................................................... 9
6.1.1 Overview ..................................................................................................... 9
6.1.2 Concepts and combinations of events and states ........................................ 9
6.1.3 Fault tree for investigation of faults leading to other faults or events ........... 9
6.1.4 FTA use in reliability assessment and improvement during product
development ............................................................................................. 10
6.2 Required system information................................................................................. 11
6.3 Fault tree graphical description and structure........................................................ 12
7 Fault tree development and evaluation ........................................................................... 13
7.1 General................................................................................................................. 13
7.2 Scope of analysis.................................................................................................. 13
7.3 System familiarization ........................................................................................... 13
7.4 Fault tree development ......................................................................................... 13
7.5 Fault tree construction .......................................................................................... 14
7.5.1 Fault tree format ....................................................................................... 14
7.5.2 Use of quantitative (Method B) FTA in system or product
development for reliability improvement .................................................... 14
7.5.3 Construction procedure ............................................................................. 22
7.5.4 Fault tree evaluation ................................................................................. 23
7.5.5 Examples of a simple hardware evaluation using Boolean algebra
and its representation by a fault tree ......................................................... 25
7.6 Failure rates in fault tree analysis ......................................................................... 30
8 Identification and labelling in a fault tree ........................................................................ 31
9 Report............................................................................................................................ 32
Annex A (informative) Symbols............................................................................................ 33
Annex B (informative) Detailed procedure for disjointing...................................................... 40
 iv

INTRODUCTION

Fault tree analysis (FTA) is concerned with the identification and analysis of conditions and
factors that cause or may potentially cause or contribute to the occurrence of a defined top
event. With FTA this event is usually seizure or degradation of system perfomance, safety or
other important operational attributes, while with STA (success tree analysis) this event is the
attribute describing the success.

FTA is often applied to the safety analysis of systems (such as transportation systems, power
plants, or any other systems that might require evaluation of safety of their operation). Fault
tree analysis can be also used for availability and maintainability analysis. However, for
simplicity, in the rest of this standard the term “reliability” will be used to represent these
aspects of system performance.

This standard addresses two approaches to FTA. One is a qualitative approach, where the
probability of events and their contributing factors, – input events – or their frequency of
occurrence is not addressed. This approach is a detailed analysis of events/faults and is
known as a qualitative or traditional FTA. It is largely used in nuclear industry applications
and many other instances where the potential causes or faults are sought out, without interest
in their likelihood of occurrence. At times, some events in the traditional FTA are investigated
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quantitatively, but these calculations are disassociated with any overall reliability concepts, in
which case, no attempt to calculate overall reliability using FTA is made. The second
approach, adopted by many industries, is largely quantitative, where a detailed FTA models
an entire product, process or system, and the vast majority of the basic events, whether faults
or events, has a probability of occurrence determined by analysis or test. In this case, the
final result is the probability of occurrence of a top event representing reliability or probability
of fault or a failure.
 1

STANDARDS AUSTRALIA

Australian Standard

Fault tree analysis (FTA)

1 Scope

This International Standard describes fault tree analysis and provides guidance on its
application as follows:

– definition of basic principles;

- describing and explaining the associated mathematical modelling;
- explaining the relationships of FTA to other reliability modelling techniques;
– description of the steps involved in performing the FTA;
– identification of appropriate assumptions, events and failure modes;
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– identification and description of commonly used symbols.

2 Normative references

The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document.
For the references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of
the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.

References to international standards that are struck through in this clause are replaced by
references to Australian or Australian/New Zealand Standards that are listed immediately
thereafter and identified by shading. Any Australian or Australian/New Zealand Standard that
is identical to the International Standard it replaces is identified as such.

IEC 60050(191), International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV) – Chapter 191: Dependability

and quality of service

IEC 61165, Application of Markov techniques

AS IEC 61165, Application of Markov techniques

3 Terms and definitions

For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in IEC 60050(191) apply.

In fault tree methodology and applications, many terms are used to better explain the intent of
analysis or the thought process behind such analysis. There are terms used also as
synonyms to those that are considered analytically correct by various authors. The following
additional terms are used in this standard.

3.1
outcome
result of an action or other input; a consequence of a cause
NOTE 1 An outcome can be an event or a state. Within a fault tree, an outcome from a combination of
corresponding input events represented by a gate may be either an intermediate event or a top event.
NOTE 2 Within a fault tree, an outcome may also be an input to an intermediate event, or it can be the top event.

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AS IEC 61025-2008 Fault tree analysis (FTA)

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