Fail-Safe Systems

Abstract

In the first part (in Chapter 4), we have mentioned that the failures altering a product can be dispatched into several classes according to the seriousness of their impact on the system itself, on its user, and on its environment. The set of the four classes — benign, significant, serious and catastrophic — constitutes an example of such classification. In this chapter, we consider faults whose external consequences are dangerous, for example serious or catastrophic. Their analysis refers to the safety criterion.