title: Improved FTA methodology and application to subsea pipeline reliability design.
abstract: An innovative logic tree, Failure Expansion Tree (FET), is proposed in this paper, which improves on traditional Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). It describes a different thinking approach for risk factor identification and reliability risk assessment. By providing a more comprehensive and objective methodology, the rather subjective nature of FTA node discovery is significantly reduced and the resulting mathematical calculations for quantitative analysis are greatly simplified. Applied to the Useful Life phase of a subsea pipeline engineering project, the approach provides a more structured analysis by constructing a tree following the laws of physics and geometry. Resulting improvements are summarized in comparison table form.
authors.affiliation: Department of Construction Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Construction Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
authors.forename: Yongbo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Department of Construction Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
authors.forename: Mingyuan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D004738:Engineering; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*