Dynamic reliability: towards an integrated platform for probabilistic risk assessment

Dynamic reliability methods are powerful mathematical frameworks capable of handling interactions among components and process variables explicitly. In principle, they constitute a more realistic modeling of systems for the purposes of reliability, risk and safety analysis. Although there is a growing recognition in the risk community of the potentially greater correctness of these methods, no serious effort has been undertaken to utilize them in industrial applications. User-friendly tools would help foster usage of dynamic reliability methods in the industry. This paper defines the key components of such a platform and for each component, provides a detailed review of techniques available for their implementation. This paper attempts to provide milestones in the creation of a high level design of such tools. To achieve this purpose, a modular approach is used. For each part, various existing techniques are discussed with respect to their potential achievements. Issues related to expected future developments are also considered.