[SystemSafety] Which software for very basic FTA?

[Shreve, Erik]

I can't advocate for the use of openFTA as I've only experimented with it. However, it can be installed on Win7 by using the Win2000 compatibility mode:
http://www.openfta.com/threadView.aspx?id=167

Erik Shreve
Principal Software Engineer
CSDP



-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of David MENTRE
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 04:55
To: systemsafety at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Which software for very basic FTA?

Hello,

Thank you for the suggestions and for correcting me that I want to do _qualitative_ Fault Trees.

Regarding openFTA, I tried the windows installer on my Win7 machine but the installer seems to block at "Installing..." phase (well, it crashed the first time and blocked twice afterwards). Anyway, Peter's comment was not very encouraging to try harder to use this tool.

Regarding Excel tricks for drawing AND and OR gates, well, I would prefer to avoid that. ;-)

Regarding UML and GSN tools, I had a look at a UML/SysML tool I had at hand (Enterprise Architect). I found no direct way to draw fault trees (but there are a lot of diagrams, so I might have missed it). It is certainly possible to tweak the tool to draw AND and OR gates but for little gain over a PowerPoint approach IMHO. I also looked quickly at Eclipse eco-system but found nothing.

Regarding dot (from GraphViz), I'm using this tool for some drawings.
But to maintain my fault tree I would need to do a lot of manual editions in a .dot file which is not very convenient (to say the least). I could also write a simple program to generate the .dot file from the fault tree description, but it would become complicated for automatic event numbering (keep the same numbering in case of tree
change) and for printing. However this approach could allow easy versionning (put the program in the VCS) and change management (do a simple diff).

Regarding Saphire, the NDA part is a blocker.

For now, I'll stick to my Excel spreadsheet and use PowerPoint (or
LibreOffice) for graphical fault trees. PowerPoint offers easy drawing of AND and OR gates and can keep connected links if some drawing parts are moved. Trees will be obviously grouped into printable pages.
However, I would lose automatic numbering of events, coherency checks (sub-trees correctly related to a upper trees) easy versionning and change management.

I am still open to other suggestions if that pops up. For example, maybe proprietary tools have some trial capabilities that could suite my needs?

Best regards,
david
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