[Updated Dec 2021] This is a list of free handbooks, guides, and textbooks covering all of the tools of system safety and probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). To the best of my knowledge, all of the resources on this page are free and legal.
We have resources covering FMEA, FTA, PRA, System Safety, Software Safety, STAMP/STPA, GSN, and Bayesian methods. The resources are drawn from multiple industries, including automotive, nuclear, space, and aviation.
Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (FMEA)
Softrel Software FMEA Overview
MIL-STD 1629 Procedures for Performing FMECA
U.S. Army FMECA Guide TM5-698-4
Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
NASA Fault Tree Handbook (overview slides)
A Fault Tree Tutorial (slides)
Building a Fault Tree from a Schematic (video tutorial)
Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA)
BSEE PRA Procedures Guide for Offshore
NUREG PRA Procedures Guide Vol 1 / Vol 2
IAEA PSA Guide Level 1 / Level 2
Guidelines on Common Cause Failures in PRA
On the Quantitative Definition of Risk
PRA: A Perspective on Strengths, Current Limitations, and Possible Improvements
System Safety
NASA System Safety Handbook Vol 1 / Vol 2
MIL-STD-882F System Safety (Draft)
Software Safety
NASA Software Safety Guidebook
NASA Software Assurance and Software Safety Standard
NASA Software Engineering Requirements
Joint Software Systems Safety Engineering Handbook
NATO AOP-52 Guidance on Software Safety
U.S. DOT Software Reliability: A Preliminary Handbook
NUREG 6463 Guidelines on Software Languages
AUTOSAR Guidelines for the use of the C++14 language
The Utility and Practicality of Quantifying Software Reliability
Handbook of Software Reliability Engineering (Book)
Bayesian Analysis
Bayesian Inference for NASA Probabilistic Risk and Reliability Analysis
Handbook of Parameter Estimation for Probabilistic Risk Assessment
Doing Bayesian Data Analysis (Book)
Bayesian Networks
A Tutorial on Learning Bayesian Networks
Understanding Bayesian Networks (Slides)
Bayesian networks: A guide for their application…
Bayesian Reasoning and Machine Learning (Book)
Learning Bayesian Networks (Book)
STAMP / STPA
STAMP/STPA Beginner Introduction
A New Accident Model for Engineering Safer Systems
Engineering a Safer World (Book)
Safety Cases and GSN
GSN Community Standard ver 3 / ver 2
UL 4600 (draft) Autonomous Systems Safety
Adelard Safety Case Development Manual (free registration)
Civil Aviation CAP 760 Guidance on Safety Cases
Reliability Engineering
MIL-HDBK-338B Electronic Reliability Design Handbook
Reliability Design Handbook (1976)
Probability Distributions Used in Reliability Engineering
Reliability Engineering by Kapur & Pecht (book)
More To Come…
That should keep you busy for a while! This page will be updated periodically with fun new stuff. Please leave a comment if there are any great resources I left off.
Check out our other FunctionalSafetyEngineer posts, including Automotive Functional Safety Certification and Intro to ISO 26262.
Wondering how to get failure data for quantitative risk assessment? Our sister site SISEngineer.com can tell you where to find failure data.
This is a brilliant set of resources – many thanks !
great resources, many thanks!
Great resources
The URL for CAP670 is incorrect; it should be https://www.caa.co.uk/cap760 Note that the GSN example therein leaves a bit to be desired…
Another great reference for software safety is https://www.caa.co.uk/cap670
Wow excellent source of safety knowledge