A Document-Driven Method for Certifying Scientific Computing Software for Use in Nuclear Safety Analysis

Abstract

This paper presents a documentation and development method to facilitate the certification of scientific computing software used in the safety analysis of nuclear facilities. To study the problems faced during quality assurance and certification activities, a case study was performed on legacy software used for thermal analysis of a fuelpin in a nuclear reactor. Although no errors were uncovered in the code, 27 issues of incompleteness and inconsistency were found with the documentation. This work proposes that software documentation follow a rational process, which includes a software requirements specification following a template that is reusable, maintainable, and understandable. To develop the design and implementation, this paper suggests literate programming as an alternative to traditional structured programming. Literate programming allows for documenting of numerical algorithms and code together in what is termed the literate programmer’s manual. This manual is developed with explicit traceability to the software requirements specification. The traceability between the theory, numerical algorithms, and implementation facilitates achieving completeness and consistency, as well as simplifies the process of verification and the associated certification.