Reliability evaluation of gantry cranes based on fault tree analysis and Bayesian network

Abstract

We proposed a method to evaluate the reliability of gantry cranes and address current shortcomings in reliability evaluations. First, according to gantry crane characteristics, an evaluation system and fault tree model were established. Fault tree analysis (FTA) was then transformed into a Bayesian network topology model. Second, the prior probability of basic events was determined from expert scoring. Finally, the reliability of the whole crane was evaluated. The proposed method was applied to a company’s gantry crane. The result indicated that failure probability could be calculated, and the root cause of failure could be precisely diagnosed. Fuzzy mathematical analysis could only evaluate risk levels of gantry cranes, and FTA provided only the minimum cut sets. The proposed method could precisely identify more risk factors than fuzzy mathematical analysis and FTA. This study confirmed that the proposed methodology was a more efficient reliability evaluation tool.