Skip to main content

Safety in the Underground Construction and Operation of the Exploratory Studies Facility at Yucca Mountain (1995) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:

Safety Engineering Design Analysis For Tunneling Equipment
Pages 55-64

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 55...
... These analysis techniques provide a cost-effective means of uncovering design flaws that otherwise would go undetected until after the equipment has been delivered to the user. Unfortunately, turmel equipment designers and manufacturers do not routinely perform these analyses in their design process, thereby leaving potentially catastrophic design flaws that can result in fatal accidents.
Read the entire page →
From page 56...
... Some government agencies (e.g., the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Federal Aviation Agency) have been instrumental in developing engineering analysis techniques due to the catastrophic nature of equipment failure in their environments.
Read the entire page →
From page 57...
... This allows such potential failures to be eliminated or minimized through design correction at the earliest possible time. The FMECA is an iterative process as the design continues, evaluating not only these design changes but also any changes that were incorporated to reduce potential safety hazards.
Read the entire page →
From page 59...
... The resulting matrix display shows the distribution of the criticality of item-failure modes and provides a tool for assigning corrective action priorities. As shown in Figure 2, the further along the diagonal line from the origin the failure mode is recorded, the greater the criticality and the more urgent the need to implement corrective action.
Read the entire page →
From page 60...
... FAULT-TREE ANALYSIS FTA is also a valuable design and diagnostic tool and is one of the principle methods of system safety analysis. It is a detailed analysis that can predict the combinations of multiple failure events (i.e., multiple contingencies)
Read the entire page →
From page 61...
... The "AND" gate describes the logical operation requiring the coexistence of all input events to produce the output event. The symbols for these two logic gates and some of the event symbols are shown in a simplified example of a fault tree in Figure 3.
Read the entire page →
From page 63...
... When all design changes have been made, the fault tree is re-evaluated to determine whether the revised design provides an acceptable level of safety. SUMMARY Well-proven analysis techniques exist to uncover safety-critical design flaws during the design process, rather than after the equipment has been delivered and is operating in the tunnel.
Read the entire page →

Key Terms

  • fault tree
  • tunneling equipment
  • analysis techniques
  • design process
  • failure modes

  • mode occurring
  • engineering design
  • design flaws
  • design analysis
  • safety engineering

  • operations contractors
  • mode resulting
  • potential failure
  • criticality analysis
  • engineering analysis

  • safety hazards
  • design changes
  • undesired event
  • design analyses
  • severity classifications

  • drawing board
  • safety design
  • corrective action
  • potential safety
  • top event

  • equipment failure
  • fatal accidents
  • potentially catastrophic
  • require contractually
  • techniques exist


    • This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
    More information on Chapter Skim is available.