Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
Presenter: Dr Chris Jackson
Click Register to view available course delivery modes (virtual/face-to-face), dates, and locations.
The registration page allows you to register individually or to register groups of up to 15.
The course will be delivered virtually.
Duration: 14 Hours | Price: $2,200
Course Aim
This 14-hour online course teaches students how to conduct one of the most important reliability and reliability engineering activities – Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). Students will learn how to use fault trees to model system reliability performance (based on component reliability characteristics) and help identify the root causes of failure. Fault trees visually represent our understanding of how faults progress to failure, helping us do things like warranty period determination, reliability prediction, or conduct Root Cause Analysis (RCA). This means that fault trees can either help ‘measure reliability’ or ‘improve reliability’ through identifying likely failure ‘root causes’ that can be designed out of the system.
Fault trees are often parts of larger proactive reliability engineering activities like Failure Mode and Effects Analyses (FMEAs) and Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analyses (FMECAs). This means that FTA can be used to prevent problems, including issues that may introduce production costs and delays. If failure is defined as any event where we fail to meet our customer or user expectations, fault trees can also help robust, customer-centric design. We can therefore prioritize those features that matter the most to our customers, and we incorporate really simple design changes very early in the production lifecycle to become or remain an industry leader.
This course is suited to those who design, manufacture or need to otherwise manage any sort of product or equipment, along with managers who need to make business decisions based on reliability characteristics.
Course Conduct
This course is offered online. Attendees will be provided with logon details for the course online portal for 12 months, allowing them to study at their own pace with access when they are ready to focus on the in the course. Each of the 28 in-depth lessons incorporate videos with corresponding guidebooks featuring matching visuals, and revision questions and answers, providing seamless learning across resources. Case studies are used to illustrate how FTA is used in a large range of endeavours across industries such as aerospace, automotive, and nuclear energy. Studies include nuclear disasters such as those at Chernobyl or Fukushima, and investigations of failure such as aircraft crashes through to smart locks failing. Asynchronous support is provided by the presenter.
On registration, you will be sent an e-mail with instructions advising how to log on to the course to access course materials and other details.
Course Outline
These expertly crafted lessons cover everything from FTA fundamentals to advanced reliability: modelling Fault Tree methodology, system reliability modelling, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) alternative visualization methods (RBDs, Event Trees), and applications across industries.
Lesson 1: Introduction to Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
Lesson 2: Understanding System Reliability
Lesson 3: Modelling Complex Systems
Lesson 4: More Fault Tree Functionality
Lesson 5: Series and Parallel Systems Reliability
Lesson 6: Series & Parallel Systems (Exercises)
Lesson 7: Analyzing 'K' out of 'N' Systems
Lesson 8: Analyzing 'K' out of 'N' Systems Worked Exercises
Lesson 9: Analyzing ‘K’ out of ‘N’ Systems with Different Components
Lesson 10: Using Reliability Curves
Lesson 11: Failure Rates and the MTTF / MTBF
Lesson 12: Component and System MTBFs
Lesson 13: Complex System Reliability Analysis
Lesson 14: Bridging Systems & Reliability Block Diagrams
Lesson 15: Other Logic Gates & Models
Lesson 16: Fault Trees & Cut Sets
Lesson 17: Dependence
Lesson 18: Advanced – Switching Systems
Lesson 19: Advanced – Monte Carlo Simulation
Lesson 20: Fault Trees & RCA
Lesson 21: Smart Lock RCA
Lesson 22: Smart Lock RCA Example - Software
Lesson 23: The Quality & Reliability Mindset
Lesson 24: Robust, Customer-centric Design
Lesson 25: What Customers Want
Lesson 26: The FTA Procedure – Preparation
Lesson 27: The FTA Procedure – Execution
Lesson 28: Fault Trees – Pros & Cons
Course Material
The following resources will be provided to attendees of this course:
A 600-page Guidebook.
Revision questions and answers for each lesson.
In-depth references for formulas, step-by-step exercises, and more.
A completion certificate on passing the course assessments.