Walker, Ian D.Cavallaro, Joseph R.2012-05-302012-05-301996-05-01I. D. Walker and J. R. Cavallaro, "Failure Mode Analysis for a Hazardous Waste Clean-up Manipulator," <i>Reliability Engineering and System Safety,</i> vol. 53, no. 3, 1996.10.1016/S0951-8320(96)00055-5http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=6396266628643171790&hl=en&as_sdt=0,44https://hdl.handle.net/1911/64194This paper describes the application of Fault Tree Analysis to the design phase of a robot manipulator for hazardous waste retrieval. The robot is to be deployed in single-shell under-ground storage tanks at the US Department of Energy (DOE) site in Hanford, Washington. These tanks contain a variety of highly radioactive waste types, necessitating extremely safe and reliable manipulator operation. Based on preliminary design drawings of this long-reach manipulator, fault trees were constructed for several critical failure scenarios. Analysis of the trees revealed a number of ways to improve the safety and reliability of the manipulator design. This paper presents a summary of the fault tree analysis, with a discussion of the applicability of qualitative and quantitative fault tree methods to hazardous waste robotics.engFault tree analysisRobot manipulatorsReliabilityRoboticsJournal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0951-8320(96)00055-5