Research of the Node Ordering Technique According to the Shortest Fault Tree

Abstract

Zero-suppressed Binary Decision Diagram (ZBDD) algorithm is an advanced method in fault tree analysis, which is developing quickly in recent years and being used in the development of the Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) Quantification Engine. This algorithm converts a fault tree to a ZBDD structure, solves the minimal cut sets and calculates the top node unavailability. The ordering of the basic events and logical gates is the core technique of the ZBDD algorithm, which determines the efficiency of the ZBDD conversion and the size of the ZBDD structure. A variable ordering method based on the structure of the fault tree is developed in this paper, which gives a better basic events order by compressing the fault tree; meanwhile, the method offers a logical gates order. The nodes order derived from this method can accelerate the ZBDD conversion obviously.