Software safety hazard analysis

Technical Report · Thu Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/201805· OSTI ID:201805

Lawrence, J D ^[1]

---

1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)

Techniques for analyzing the safety and reliability of analog-based electronic protection systems that serve to mitigate hazards in process control systems have been developed over many years, and are reasonably well understood. An example is the protection system in a nuclear power plant. The extension of these techniques to systems which include digital computers is not well developed, and there is little consensus among software engineering experts and safety experts on how to analyze such systems. One possible technique is to extend hazard analysis to include digital computer-based systems. Software is frequently overlooked during system hazard analyses, but this is unacceptable when the software is in control of a potentially hazardous operation. In such cases, hazard analysis should be extended to fully cover the software. A method for performing software hazard analysis is proposed in this paper.

• Research Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States). Div. of Reactor Controls and Human Factors; Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 201805
• Report Number(s): NUREG/CR--6430; UCRL-ID--122514; ON: TI96006597
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
COMPUTER CODES
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
FAILURE MODE ANALYSIS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
REACTOR CONTROL SYSTEMS
REACTOR PROTECTION SYSTEMS
RISK ASSESSMENT
SAFETY ANALYSIS
SAFETY ENGINEERING