Development of an Automated Software Reliability Tester for Digital I and C
- AMS Corporation, 9119 Cross Park Drive Knoxville, TN 37923 (United States)
Existing nuclear facilities are in the process of upgrading analog systems to new, software- based digital components; however, the qualification of these new systems has been a significant hurdle for their implementation in the United States. This paper describes the development of a Software Reliability Tester (SRT) that will provide a means to quantify the reliability and fault tolerance of digital instrumentation and control (I and C) systems used in nuclear facilities. The SRT is comprised of hardware and software that exercise digital equipment inputs and compare the outputs to expected values to quantify system reliability. Incorporation of fault injection techniques enables the SRT to evaluate the robustness of digital I and C in the presence of abnormal conditions. The integration of both quantitative reliability and fault tolerance measures will provide the nuclear industry with an automated and systematic approach to digital I and C qualification. This will enable safer, more reliable, and more cost effective implementations of a broad spectrum of digital I and C equipment in existing and next generation nuclear facilities. This paper includes a description of the design of the SRT, including software modules and the hardware interface. In addition, an example of using the SRT to automate functional testing of a digital timer relay is presented. The SRT described in this paper provides a means to conduct efficient and robust testing for a variety of digital devices. Future plans for the SRT include integrating fault injection testing so that devices can be evaluated in the presence of off-normal conditions. (authors)
- OSTI ID:
- 22991892
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 114; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Technical Basis for Evaluating Software-Related Common-Cause Failures
Methodological approach to the sensitivity analysis of failure effects in modern digital I and C systems - 136