Model-based hazard analysis of undesirable environmental and components interaction

Identifying the detrimental effect of environmental factors and subsystem interactions are historically one of the most challenging aspects of early hazard assessment in the design of complex avionic systems. Therefore, a complete understanding of potential failure effects before and even after a catastrophe happens is a very difficult task. This paper proposes a model-based hazard analysis procedure for early identification of potential safety issues caused by unexpected environmental factors and subsystem interactions within a complex avionic system. The proposed methodology maps hazard and vulnerability modes to specific components in the system and analyzes the hazard propagation paths for risk control and protection strategies. The main advantage of the proposed method is the ability to provide the designers with means to use low-fidelity, high level models to identify hazardous interactions. Using this technique, designers can examine the collective impacts of environmental and subsystem risks on overall system during early stages of design and develop a hazard mitigation strategy.