Enabling Automated Fault Tree Assessment to Support Aircraft Systems Architecting in Early Design Phases

Novel aircraft configurations require early safety assessments to prevent costly rework and validate feasibility. At the conceptual design stage, the primary challenge lies in deriving meaningful safety insights through qualitative and quantitative assessment methods in a manner compatible with the low granularity of preliminary architecture specifications. This paper presents an approach to represent the system architecture using a graph-based architecture descriptor that supports the automated generation of fault trees and enables a system architect to rapidly evaluate and reconfigure candidate system architectures based on quantitative safety metrics. The fault trees are generated by transforming the graph-based model of the architecture into an AltaRica 3.0 model with the behavior of each architecture element modeled on the incoming and outgoing power type, control signal, or mass flow. An aircraft landing gear braking system case study demonstrates the automated fault tree assessment and rapid architecture reconfiguration based on safety insights garnered from the fault tree assessment. Overall, the processes described in this paper enable safety-driven exploration of system architectures in conceptual design.