diff --git a/submission_thesis/CH6_Evaluation/copy.tex b/submission_thesis/CH6_Evaluation/copy.tex index 014279d..f78a5bd 100644 --- a/submission_thesis/CH6_Evaluation/copy.tex +++ b/submission_thesis/CH6_Evaluation/copy.tex @@ -20,22 +20,57 @@ % RANGE == OUTPUTS % -When performing FMEA, we have a system under investigation, which will be -comprised of a collection of components which have associated failure modes. -The object of FMEA is to determine cause and effect: -from the failure modes (the causes, {\fms} of {\bcs}) to the effects (or symptoms of failure) at the top level. +When performing FMEA we consider the system under investigation +to be a collection of components which have associated failure modes. % +The object of FMEA is to determine cause and effect. +We apply reasoning to calculate, using the failure modes, the effects +%from these failure modes (the causes, {\fms} of {\bcs}) to the effects +(or symptoms of failure) at the top level. +% +We can view FMEA as a process, taking each component in the system and for all its failure modes +applying analysis. +% +This however entails a problem: which other components in the system must we +check against the %current failure mode. +each particular failure mode. +% +Often a component failing will have obvious effects on functionally adjacent components. +Sometimes %though, perhaps in the case of de-coupling capacitors in a digital ciruit, +side effects of failure may manifest due interaction with other components not obviously functionally related. +%% CONTEXT OF SYSTEM FAILURE: PERHAPS NOT RELEVANT HERE +% +% The symptoms of failure are dependent upon the context, or environment that the system operates in. +% We can trace all base component failure modes to corresponding system failures: but the effect +% of the system failure depends upon how the system is used. +% % +% A resistor failure could, for instance, make a process reading go out of range. +% This could cause the process to be stopped or simply one reading out of many would +% be marked faulty and be dealt with in the next maintenance phase of the plant. +% % +% Another resistor failing could cause a dangerous control problem. +% +%The context of the system failures is the important thingy bob dooo dah. +% +% +%Also a particular component failure mode may affect the performance of another. +The temptation with FMEA can be to think through a line of failure mode reasoning without considering +side effects. +%% To perform FMEA rigorously we could stipulate that every failure mode must be checked for effects against all the components in the system. +% +This would mean we would be looking for all possible side effects that a base component failure could cause. +% We could term this `rigorous~FMEA'~(RFMEA). The number of checks we have to make to achieve this, gives an indication of the complexity of the task. This is described in section~\ref{sec:rd}, where the reasoning distance, or complexity to analyse a single FMEA failure scenario, is given in equation~\ref{eqn:complexity}. - % -We could term this `comparison~complexity', as the number of -paths between failure modes and components necessary to achieve RFMEA for a given system/functional~group. +% +We term this `comparison~complexity', the number of +paths between failure modes and components necessary to achieve RFMEA for a given system/{\fg}. % (except its self of course, that component is already considered to be in a failed state!). %