Fuzzy rule-based evidential reasoning approach for safety analysis

This paper aims at proposing a framework for modelling the safety of an engineering system with various types of uncertainties using a fuzzy rule-based evidential reasoning (FURBER) approach. In the framework, parameters used to define the safety level, including failure rate, failure consequence severity and failure consequence probability, are described using fuzzy linguistic variables; a fuzzy rule-base designed on the basis of a belief structure is used to capture uncertainty and non-linear relationships between these parameters and the safety level; and the inference of the rule-based system is implemented using the evidential reasoning algorithm. A numerical study of collision risk analysis for a kind of offshore platform is used to illustrate the application of the proposed approach.