Model checking reveals design issues leading to spurious actuation of nuclear instrumentation and control systems

Antti Pakonen, I Buzhinsky and Björkman, K

Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 2021, vol. 205, issue C

Abstract: A spurious actuation of an industrial instrumentation and control (I&C) system is a failure mode where the system or its component inadvertently produces an operation without a justified reason to do so. Design issues leading to spurious failures are difficult to analyse, but pose a high risk for safety. Model checking is a formal verification method that can be used for exhaustive analysis of I&C systems. In this paper, we explain how formal properties that address spurious failures can be specified, and how model checking can then be used to verify I&C application logic designs based on vendor-specific function block diagrams. Based on over ten years of successful practical projects in the Finnish nuclear industry, we present 21 real-world design issues (representing 37% of all detected issues), each involving a systemic failure that could lead to spurious actuation of nuclear safety I&C. We then describe how random failures of the underlying hardware architecture—another cause for spurious actuation—can also be included in the models. With an experimental evaluation based on real-world nuclear industry models, we demonstrate that our method can be effectively used for the verification of single failure tolerance.

Keywords: Model checking; I&c; Spurious failure; Model-based system engineering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reensy:v:205:y:2021:i:c:s0951832020307377

DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2020.107237

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