Extending and Automating a Systems-Theoretic Hazard Analysis for Requirements Generation and Analysis

Technical Report · Tue May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1044959· OSTI ID:1044959

Thomas, John ^[1]

---

1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) is a powerful new hazard analysis method designed to go beyond traditional safety techniques - such as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) - that overlook important causes of accidents like flawed requirements, dysfunctional component interactions, and software errors. While proving to be very effective on real systems, no formal structure has been defined for STPA and its application has been ad-hoc with no rigorous procedures or model-based design tools. This report defines a formal mathematical structure underlying STPA and describes a procedure for systematically performing an STPA analysis based on that structure. A method for using the results of the hazard analysis to generate formal safety-critical, model-based system and software requirements is also presented. Techniques to automate both the analysis and the requirements generation are introduced, as well as a method to detect conflicts between the safety and other functional model-based requirements during early development of the system.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 1044959
• Report Number(s): SAND--2012-4080
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
ACCIDENTS
DESIGN
FAULT TREE ANALYSIS
FUNCTIONALS
SAFETY