A Summary of the Guidelines on the Evaluation of V&V Tools for Safety Digital I&C Software in Nuclear Power Plant Systems

Abstract

With the rapid development of the digitalized instrumentation and control (I&C) systems, computer-based and software-driven systems have been employed in nuclear power plant on a large scale. Automated tools take a crucial role in the software verification and validation (V&V) process. However, defects in the tools may bring uncertainty, risk, and even failures to the safety software if the tools are not well designed, carefully developed, effectively tested, and appropriately used. Therefore, it is critical that automated tools should be evaluated and tested for the reliability, accountability, and feasibility before they are used in the software V&V process. However, there is no widely accepted method to evaluate the tools. Many methods for tool evaluation have been proposed by different organization, including nuclear industry and other high reliability industry. This study is a survey of the current practice and standards related to the evaluation of tools for safety-related digital Instrumentation and Control (I&C) software for nuclear power plants. Standards and documents from organizations such as IEEE, IAEA, and NRC Regulations are collected and analyzed in this paper. By summarizing and analyzing the related standards and practice, this study intends to explain what should be done for the evaluation of the tools, which may be used in the self-reliance process of nuclear industry in China.