Abstract
Offshore, marine, aircraft and other complex engineering systems operate in harsh environmental and operational conditions and must meet stringent requirements of reliability, safety and maintainability. To reduce the high cost of development of new systems in these fields improved design management techniques and a vast array of computer aided techniques are applied during design and testing stages. Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is generally used in the above industries to reduce design risks. At present FMEA cannot be carried out automatically. Although various FMEA software tools exist, they basically provide data management for a manual analysis. It is generally recognised that failure analyses are usually carried out after the system has been designed, and often after it has been manufactured. If any fundamental design flaws or safety risks in the system are identified at this stage then modifications to the hardware are often costly. The software tool for automated FMEA is based on qualitative modelling of generalised information flow (energy, information or mass) in a system, recognising that the primary functions of mechanical, electrical, thermal and/or hydraulic systems (or their combination) as well as modem neuromechanic systems (also called mechatronic systems in the mechanical domain) are the generation, transmission and conversion of energy. The paper explains some underlying principles of software operation and provides a description of the software
