Nuclear Plant Journal, January-February 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
39
onto the chip itself. In the nuclear field,
FPGAs are being considered for the
replacement of obsolete components
in use in existing Nuclear Power Plants
(NPPs). In this work, an FPGA-based test
system was modeled and analyzed using
a dynamic (time dependent) reliability
methodology known as the Dynamic
Flowgraph Methodology (DFM). This
methodology was used to model and
analyze the effects of radiation-induced
failures, known as Single Event Effects
(SEE) on an FPGA-based Vanadium
dynamic signal compensator and
trip logic system. The DFM analysis
showed how these SEEs could cause
failure conditions such as Spurious
Trips or Missed Trips, in a system that
was otherwise functioning normally.
This work has been expanded upon, to
include research into DFM modelling
of Error Detection and Correction codes
(EDAC), as well as comparisons between
DFM and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), for
the reliability analysis of FPGA-based
systems.
Contact: Phillip McNelles, CNSC
CCSN, email: phillip.mcnelles@canada.
ca.
Concluding Remarks
Everyone is interested in a way to test
software and come up with an objective
assessment of its quality (people are
looking for a number). Common cause
failure probability is what people are
striving to quantify and thereby arrive at
an acceptance criteria. The regulators have
apparently not issued clear guidelines as
to what will be acceptable. Apparently,
many people, including my company,
are working in both analytical/theoretical
and experimental means to determine
software reliability. Some people are
doing this by analysis on paper and others
like AMS are developing hardware and
software products to help the industry to
test software that is used in digital I&C
systems.
Contact: H.M. Hashemian, Analysis
Measurement Services Corporation,
AMS Technology Center, 9119 Cross
Park Drive, Knoxville, TN 37923; email:
.
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