Volume 06,Issue 03

A Question on Using Fuzzy Set Theory and Its Extensions in Safety and Reliability

Authors

Mohammad Yazdi

Abstract
In order to analyze the safety and reliability of a system, different types of probabilistic structural methods such fault tree analysis (FTA), event tree analysis (ETA), Bayesian Network (BN) can be used. In such probabilistic methods, the failure probability of an event as root events must be obtained. Reliability Data handbook database can be used to obtain the failure probability of the events. However, in some case, there is no data about the failure probability of event. In such a case, expert judgment using fuzzy set theory and its extensions are utilized as an alternative in order to deal with the subjective uncertainty. However, the common existing expert judgment approaches still suffer from the logical lack of reliability in the experts’ opinions elicitation procedure. This paper analyzes the use of fuzzy set theory and its extensions in safety and reliability analysis as well as discussing how they suffer from lack of reliability As a result, it should make researchers in that situation deeply think about finding out of a better alternative using experts’ judgment-based methods.

Keyword: Fuzzy set theory, Experts’ judgment, Subjective uncertainty.

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