ABSTRACT
Most people deal with uncertain events each day in their lives but rarely pause to calculate chances or probabilities. Yet whole professions, such as the insurance industry, pensions, investment advisors, and bookmakers are founded upon probability. In engineering, the ideas of probability are very important when considering the overall reliability of systems and in the areas of risk assessment. An alternative approach to solving probability problems involving a series of events is with a tree diagram. The fault tree analysis method can be used as an essential element for risk assessment studies and accident investigations. The method starts with a schematic diagram representing the system components, which have an associated probability of failure attached to them and uses a bottom-up method to analyze the system failure. Starting with the bottom probabilities and using the rules for "And" and "Or" the higher probabilities can be calculated so that the top event failure rate can be determined.
