Technical Meeting on the Software Reliability of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems for Nuclear Power Plant Safety

Focus

The focus of this Technical Meeting, that will be held in a hybrid format (virtual and in-person participation), is on key areas of software reliability of digital Instrumentation and control systems for nuclear power plant safety.

Objectives

The purpose of the event is to provide Member States with an opportunity to share experiences, practices and approaches related to ensuring the sofware reliability of programmable digital instrumentation and control systems important to safety for nuclear power plants. 

It is expected that the outcomes from the meeting will contribute to the draft safety report capturing the experiences in Member States regarding the implementation of solutions aiming at ensuring the reliability of the software used in programmable digital instrumentation and control systems important to safety for nuclear power plants. 

Topics

The event will address recent experiences in Member States to overcome difficulties as well as to promote solutions affecting the reliability of the software embedded in digital I&C systems for nuclear power plants, such as:

• Experiences in performing reliability analysis for programmable digital I&C systems, with particular focus on safety I&C systems:
  • Challenges and solutions;
  • Use of quantitative methods for reliability assessment of digital systems;
  • Use a qualitative approach for determining software reliability (i.e. based on strong requirements on the deterministic behaviour of the software to allow full verification and validation);
  • Consistency between the reliability requirements of the I&C systems and the probabilistic safety assessment by maintaining an explicit numerical reliability target for each I&C system important to safety.
• Software verification and analysis, such as:
  • Fault identification leading to potential errors in software embedded in programmable digital I&C and analysis of its propagation using analytical methods or testing;
  • Verification techniques:
    • Manual examinations such as reviews, walk-throughs, inspections and audits;
    • Static analysis of the source code;
    • Dynamic analysis.
  • Third party assessment
• Consideration of common cause failures:
  • Assessment of common cause vulnerabilities in safety I&C systems;
  • Applying diversification strategies to cope with potential common cause failures;
• Using probabilistic safety assessment in support of the design of digital I&C.

Key Deadlines and Dates

30 September 2022: Submission of abstracts via email to Scientific Secretary.

30 September 2022: Deadline for submission of the Participation Form (Form A) and if applicable Form for Submission of a Paper (Form B) and the Grant Application Form (Form C), to the competent national authority (e.g., Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Mission to the IAEA or National Atomic Energy Authority) or their organization for onward transmission to the IAEA

31 October 2022: Notification of acceptance of abstracts for oral presentations.

13-16 December 2022: Meeting dates.