Evaluation of the Level of Reliability in Hazardous Technological Processes

Abstract

In an automated systems environment is very important to predicted failures or unexpected situations to achieve system reliability. Failure of such systems can cause serious property damage, the environment, damage to human health or cause death. The essential task is to determine the tolerable and acceptable risk. The required level of risk for safety-critical systems can be achieved by using international technical standards and applying safety functions. Safety functions are implemented using an electrical/electronic/programmable electronics (E/E/PE) safety-related system. Technical standards offer the aspect of balancing risk tolerability according to the relevant, reliable safety functions. Based on the specific architecture of the whole system, it is possible to determine the maximum failure rate of the probability of failure on demand (PFDSYS) of the selected architecture. Subsequent application of reliability analysis using the event tree analysis (ETA) and fault tree analysis (FTA) methods can optimize the failure rate of the entire system. Application of reliability analysis using event tree analysis (ETA) and fault tree analysis (FTA) methods can only theoretically optimize the failure rate of the entire system with constant initial conditions and constant parameters of the reliability functions. The article proposes a new methodology for dynamic analysis of the state of system reliability as a function of the system operation time, maintenance frequency and system architecture. As a result of the methodology is a library of standard element architectures and simulation models which allows predicting and optimizing the reliability of E/E/PE safety-related systems.