Development of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis methodology using Model-Based Safety Assessment approach

Abstract

During the development of aircraft systems, the safety assessment process activities are carried out in parallel. Traditionally, safety professionals perform Functional Hazard Assessment, Preliminary System Safety Assessment, and System Safety Assessment. Despite the availability of many modern and advanced tools for performing calculations during the implementation of the System Safety Assessment, a great responsibility (and, accordingly, the risk of error) remains with the person. Model-Based Safety Assessment is a new and rapidly developing approach to evaluate the safety of airborne equipment worldwide, which improves existing methodologies for performing various analyzes, such as Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Implementation of FMEA using this approach requires the development of special software tools that allow both to create a model of the analyzed onboard equipment and systems, and to provide an opportunity to use this model when performing FMEA. One such tool is ANSYS Medini Analyze. Model-oriented method for performing FMEA is proposed within this article. This method fully complies with the requirements of ARP-4761 and provides possibility to minimize the likelihood of human error. Model-oriented method for performing FMEA has been probated on the example of flight control system at various levels of abstraction (system, item, functional block and hardware/software level).