Intuitionistic fuzzy fault tree analysis of PCBA using novel arithmetic operations

PurposeThe main goal of this paper is to develop novel Tω(weakest t-norm)-based fuzzy arithmetic operations to analyze the intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) using fault tree.Design/methodology/approachThe paper proposes a fuzzy fault tree analysis (FFTA) method for evaluating the intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of any nonrepairable system with uncertain information about failures of system components. This method uses a fault tree for modeling the failure phenomenon of the system, triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (TIFNs) to determine data uncertainty, while novel arithmetic operations are adopted to determine the intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of a system under consideration. The proposed arithmetic operations employ Tω(weakest t-norm) to minimize the accumulating phenomenon of fuzziness, whereas the weighted arithmetic mean is employed to determine the membership as well as nonmembership degrees of the intuitionistic fuzzy failure possibility of the nonrepairable system. The usefulness of the proposed method has been illustrated by inspecting the intuitionistic fuzzy failure possibility of the PCBA and comparing the results with five other existing FFTA methods.FindingsThe results show that the proposed FFTA method effectively reduces the accumulating phenomenon of fuzziness and provides optimized degrees of membership and nonmembership for computed intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of a nonrepairable system.Originality/valueThe paper introduces Tω(weakest t-norm) and weighted arithmetic mean based operations for evaluating the intuitionistic fuzzy failure possibility of any nonrepairable system in an uncertain environment using a fault tree.