Plant and safety system model

The design and development of a digital computer-based safety system for a nuclear power plant is a complex process. The process of design and product development must result in a final product free of critical errors; operational safety of nuclear power plants must not be compromised. This paper focuses on the development of a safety system model to assist designers, developers, and regulators in establishing and evaluating requirements for a digital computer-based safety system. The model addresses hardware, software, and human elements for use in the requirements definition process. The purpose of the safety system model is to assist and serve as a guide to humans in the cognitive reasoning process of establishing requirements. The goals in the use of the model are to: (1) enhance the completeness of the requirements and (2) reduce the number of errors associated with the requirements definition phase of a project.