ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with fault tree analysis and its application to process plant safety. In striving for the improvement of the safety of technical systems numerous formalized procedures for plant safety analysis have been developed. Human error is treated in fault tree analysis in analogy with the failure of technical components. Fault tree analysis is widely used in the nuclear power industry and constitutes the core of the methodology applied in risk studies, where in addition to calculating the expected frequency of undesired events, their consequences are assessed. Once the undesired event or events have been fixed, the initiating events — events potentially capable of bringing about the undesired event — must be found. The search for undesired and initiating events requires the analyst to have a thorough knowledge of the system under investigation and a good background in physics, chemistry, and engineering.
