MARSA - the Software Tool for Reliability and Safety Assessment of Control Systems

Abstract

In systems, where it is possible to be defined criterion for desired non dangerous behaviour after failure (e.g. red signal in railway transport, letting down the regulating graphite poles by the nuclear power plants etc.) the safety problems are solved, which do not coincide with reliability problems. The safety after failure depends on the dangerous failures only. This safety aspect is not well used for safety assessment of technical systems up to now. In many cases the classical tools for reliability calculation are used, applying the “worst-case” approach. This leads to significant reservation, and later on to more costs. These disadvantages are avoided by the new software tool MARSA. It is intended for probabilistic reliability and safety assessment of technical systems with or without defined desired behaviour after failure.