An evaluation approach using a HARA and FMEDA for the hardware SIL

Safety instrumented systems (SIS) are becoming increasingly complex, and form a growing proportion of programmable electronic parts. The IEC 61508 global standard was established to ensure the functional safety of SIS; however, it was expressed in highly macroscopic terms. The safety integrity level (SIL) is a criterion describing whether a component meets the safety requirements of a SIS. The safety requirements give a target SIL for the expected risks using hazard analysis and risk assessment (HARA). The SIL must correspond to the safety requirements. This study introduces an evaluation process for determining the hardware SIL through failure modes, effects, and diagnostic analysis (FMEDA). First, the components of the SIS subsystem are defined in terms of failure modes and effects, and then the failure rate and failure mechanism distribution are assigned to each component. The safety mode and detectability of each failure mode are determined for each component and, finally, the hardware SIL is evaluated. We perform a case study to evaluate the hardware SIL of the flame scanner system using HARA and FMEDA, where the safety requirement of the flame scanner was determined using the risk graph method. We verified that the hardware SIL of the flame scanner corresponded to the safety requirement.