ABSTRACT
This paper describes an expert system having the potential to reduce the man-effort required to perform safety and relibility assessment by providing a common interface for the physical modelling and reliability assessment of engineering systems. The approach taken is to describe an engineering system as a network of connected nodes, the physical and reliability characteristics of each node being described by the analysts and stored in expert system knowledge bases. The physical state of the system under specified boundary conditions can then be determined and reliability analyses performed. The present paper describes the physical modelling of hydraulic/pneumatic systems and the reliability analyses of these systems using FMEA and FTA techniques. The approach however is also suited to other types of systems and other reliability analysis techniques including HAZOP/HAZAN.
