Fundamental Safety Engineering and Risk Management Concepts, 2016

H. Tan

Tutorial 1 General
1. You are given a pipeline system as shown in Figure Q1. Initially valves A and B are closed. A signal
is sent to open the two valves so that the fluid in the pipe can flow from left to right. Valve A can be
successfully opened which is denoted as random event OA ; it can also fail to be opened, i.e., remain to
be closed, which is denoted as random event OA . Similarly, valve B has two states, OB (valve B is
successfully opened) and OB (valve B is not successfully opened, i.e., remains closed). There are no
other causes of failure. Construct a fault tree for the top failure event TClosed, the pipe system is closed
when a signal is sent for opening.

Figure Q1
a) Use the logic symbols (or ) (and ) to write down the logic for TClosed.

b) Use and/or gates to construct the fault tree for the topic failure event TClosed, the pipe system is
closed when a signal is sent for opening

Fundamental Safety Engineering and Risk Management Concepts, 2016

H. Tan

2. You are given a pipeline system as shown in Figure Q2. Initially valves E and F are closed. A signal
is sent to open the two valves so that the fluid in the pipe can flow from left to right. Valve E can be
successfully opened which is noted as random event OE ; it can also fail to be opened, i.e., remain to be
closed, which is noted as random event OE . Similarly, valve F has two states, OF (valve F is
successfully opened) and OF (valve F is not successfully opened, i.e., remain closed). There are no
other causes of failure. Construct a fault tree for the top failure event TClosed, the pipe system is closed
when a signal is sent for opening.

Figure Q2
a) Use the logic symbols (or ) (and ) to write down the logic for TClosed.

b) Use and/or gates to construct the fault tree for the topic failure event TClosed, the pipe system is
closed when a signal is sent for opening
3. You are given a system of switches connected as shown in Figure Q3. There are no other causes of
failure.

Figure Q3
a) Construct a fault tree for the top event TC, the circuit is closed when it should be open.
b) Construct a second fault tree for the top event TO, the circuit is open when it should be closed.

Fundamental Safety Engineering and Risk Management Concepts, 2016

H. Tan

4. Figure 4 shows a histogram of the time to failure of a very large population of valve components.
The components were nominally identical, and all operated in a similar operating environment. All
components fail after 100 months.

Figure 4, The random variation in the time to failure of a valve component.

a) Let n(t ) denotes the number of survival components at time t. Draw the curve of n(t ) .
b) The reliability of the component at time t is defined as R(t ) = n(t ) / N , where N = n(0) is the
initial total number of components. Draw the curve of R(t ) .
c) The failure probability function is defined as F (t ) = 1 R(t ) . Draw the curve of F (t ) .
dF (t )
d) The failure probability density function is defined as f (t ) =
. Draw the curve of f (t ) .
dt
e) Failure rate is the frequency with which an engineered system or component fails, expressed for
example in failures per month. The failure rate function, or hazard function h ( t ) can be

1 dn
. Draw the curve of h ( t ) .
n dt
f (t )
f) From the drawing, prove that h ( t ) =
.
R(t )
calculated from h ( t ) =