An Efficient Algorithm for Finding Modules in Fault Trees

Abstract

A module of a fault tree is an independent subtree that has no input from the rest of the tree and no output to the rest, except the top events. Modularization is an important technique to reduce the computation cost for large, complex fault tree analysis. This article presents a new linear-time algorithm that is more efficient and easier to code for finding modules existing in fault trees. Two main stages are included in the proposed algorithm: branching and transforming. To demonstrate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed algorithm, comparisons are performed between the proposed algorithm and other linear-time algorithms for finding modules in fault trees. Results have shown the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.