Abstract: The Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), one of the common approaches to safety evaluation, is explored and discussed. Based on a theoretical analysis of the FTA, especially analytical thought and approaches, the main characteristics of the FTA are summed up. Taking the anhydride acetic acid produced by the methanol carbonylation method in Asia as the example, authors of the paper analyze the application of the FTA by designing relevant fault tree, successful tree, applying Boolean algebra and corresponding formula to calculate the structure importance coefficient of each basic event and arrange the order of the structure importance of each basic event. With this understanding, the scientific, appropriate and effective security control measures to realize the best control of product unit are put forward, the merits and shortcomings of the FTA and its application range pointed out.

Key words: fault tree analysis(FTA), fault tree, successful tree, structure importance, application, merit and disadvantage