A novel approach based on fault tree analysis and Bayesian network for multi-state reliability analysis of complex equipment systems

Due to the complex structure of multi-state complex systems and the lack of data, information, and knowledge, the uncertainty of the logical relationship between the failure states of systems and components and the uncertainty of related failure data become the key issues in the reliability analysis of multi-state complex systems. In this paper, combined with multi-state fault tree (MSFT), a multi-state reliability assessment framework for complex systems considering uncertainty based on multi-source information fusion and multi-state Bayesian network (MSBN) is proposed. The multi-source information fusion method combines historical data and experts’ opinions to solve the uncertainty problem of multi-state failure data in complex equipment systems effectively. Based on the multi-source information fusion method, the calculation method of multi-state prior probability and the construction method of conditional probability are given. By constructing the conditional probability table (CPT), the uncertain logic relationship between the multi-state nodes is effectively expressed, which effectively improves the efficiency of CPT acquisition for MSBN and reduces the workload of experts scoring. Finally, a mud circulating system is taken as an example to prove the proposed method, and the specific calculation process, evaluation results, and some discussions are given. The results show that the proposed method is an effective multi-state reliability analysis method for complex uncertain multi-state systems.