Title
Testing digital safety system software with a testability measure based on a software fault tree
Abstract
Using predeveloped software, a digital safety system is designed that meets the quality standards of a safety system. To demonstrate the quality, the design process and operating history of the product are reviewed along with configuration management practices. The application software of the safety system is developed in accordance with the planned life cycle. Testing, which is a major phase that takes a significant time in the overall life cycle, can be optimized if the testability of the software can be evaluated. The proposed testability measure of the software is based on the entropy of the importance of basic statements and the failure probability from a software fault tree. To calculate testability, a fault tree is used in the analysis of a source code. With a quantitative measure of testability, testing can be optimized. The proposed testability can also be used to demonstrate whether the test cases based on uniform partitions, such as branch coverage criteria, result in homogeneous partitions that is known to be more effective than random testing. In this paper, the testability measure is calculated for the modules of a nuclear power plant's safety software. The module testing with branch coverage criteria required fewer test cases if the module has higher testability. The result shows that the testability measure can be used to evaluate whether partitions have homogeneous characteristics.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1016/j.ress.2004.11.015
Reliability Engineering & System Safety
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Digital safety system,Testability,Entropy,Fault tree,Homogeneous partition
Journal
91
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
0951-8320
3
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.43
9
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
SeDo Sohn130.43
Poong-hyun Seong211524.53