Actuator Focused Hazard Analysis

摘要

In the early stages of a design process, a detailed hazard analysis should be performed, particularly for safety criticalsystems. In this paper an actuator based hazard analysis method is presented. Since it is the actuators that affect thesystems environment, this actuator based approach is the logical approach for an early hazard analysis when onlylimited information of the system implementation is available. This approach is also unique since all identifiedfailures are distributed on four different severities. A criticality ranking is assigned to each failure as a combinationof the severities and their distribution. This ranking is also used to give an indication of the preferred fail states. Forthe hazards resulting in a high criticality that needs to be handled, the method supports a solvability analysis betweendifferent design solutions. This solvability analysis rewards design concepts that handles hazards with high criticalitynumbers.