Combining Functional and Structural Reasoning for Safety Analysis of Electrical Designs

Chris Price, Dave Pugh, Neal Snooke, John Hunt, Myra Wilson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)
251 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Increasing complexity of design in automotive electrical systems has been paralleled by increased demands for analysis of the safety and reliability aspects of those designs. Such demands can place a great burden on the engineers charged with carrying out the analysis. This paper describes how the intended functions of a circuit design can be combined with a qualitative model of the electrical circuit that fulfils the functions, and used to analyse the safety of the design. FLAME, an automated failure mode and effects analysis system based on these techniques, is described in detail. FLAME has been developed over several years, and is capable of composing an FMEA report for many different electrical subsystems. The paper also addresses the issue of how the use of functional and structural reasoning can be extended to sneak circuit analysis and fault tree analysis.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)271-287
Number of pages17
JournalKnowledge Engineering Review
Volume12
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 1997

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Combining Functional and Structural Reasoning for Safety Analysis of Electrical Designs'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this