Failure probability analysis by employing fuzzy fault tree analysis

A significant number of accidents occur every year in chemical plants because of the failure of components. In order to manage this risk, fault tree analysis (FTA), a well-known method, was employed for failure probability analysis in the mentioned field. A complete access to the failure data is vital for quantitative FTA. There is always a shortage of information for computing failure probability of the components in high-tech industries such as chemical plants. However, the failure data is not always available, thus FTA can be extended by using the fuzzy set theory to overcome this problem. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to extend fuzzy FTA by considering common cause failure and dependency between the components. In fact, the present study was designed to consider the theoretical and practical aspect of the chemical storage tank as one of the important units in chemical plants. © 2017, The Society for Reliability Engineering, Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM), India and The Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden.