Fault tree analysis is an important technique in determining the safety and dependability of complex systems. Fault trees are used as a major tool in the study of system safety as well as in reliability and availability studies.

The basic methods – construction, logical analysis, probability evaluation and influence study – are described in this book. The following extensions of fault trees, non-coherent fault trees, fault trees with delay and multi-performance fault trees, are also explained. Traditional algorithms for fault tree analysis are presented, as well as more recent algorithms based on binary decision diagrams (BDD).