On the basic concepts of safety engineering

The basic concepts of safety engineering and functional safety frameworks are presented and discussed in this paper. The scope includes safety aspects, which are deeply rooted in philosophy e.g. the principles of causality, determinability, and randomness. Moreover, concepts are presented, which are subject of standardisation, engineering association activities, and aspects, practitioners struggling with in daily business, e.g. failure and fault; architecture and structure; redundancy and channels. The paper closes with a brief glance on engineering ethics.