Root cause and failure analysis

Overview

What you will study

The principal methods presented in the Root cause and failure analysis course offered by Khalifa University include fault tree analysis and event tree analysis.  Fault tree diagrams are used to model the possible combinations of equipment failures, human errors, and external conditions that can lead to a specific type of accident, while event trees are used to identify the possible consequence of events or accidents that lead to a particular consequence. Root Cause Failure Analysis is a very effective tool for improving the reliability of facilities, its sub systems and operation. It is a logical, structured, and deductive technique that can identify the causes behind the failure. The course will show how to identify root cause failure and analyze it in practical industrial applications.

Learning Outcomes:

• Learn the fundamental concept of risk, reliability and failure analysis.

• Survey a general knowledge and acquire a context perspective about risk, reliability and failure analysis in engineering systems.

• Learn the essential physical principles on which industrial systems are based and to be able to identify root cause of failure.

• Apply a combination of good engineering and good science.

• Distinguish between the different types of system reliability analysis (fault tree analysis, event tree analysis, failure modes and effect analysis, reliability block diagrams and functional logic diagrams ..etc).

• Identify the rules of failure analysis and fault tree construction.

• Use reliability block diagrams to represent parallel and series systems.

• Construct fault tree and event tree.

• Interpret failures graphically.

• Assess and analyze system failures qualitatively and quantitatively.

• Identify the root cause of failure analysis and minimum cut sets.

• Evaluate common cause failures through beta factor approach.

• Identify the weakness in a system through criticality analysis and importance measures (Birnabaum, fussell-Vesely, risk achievement worth, risk reduction worth, risk increase ratio, risk decrease ratio).

• Recognize the other aspects of failure analysis useful for inspection considering lifetime data.