A Domain Specific Language to Support HAZOP Studies of SysML Models

Abstract

To deal with the rising system complexity, Model-Based System Development (MBSD) approaches are becoming popular due to their promise to improve consistency between different views of the system model. For dependable systems, safety analysis is one of the important views. Model-Based Safety Analysis (MBSA) can partially automate the generation of safety artifacts and provide traceability between the system model and the generated safety artifacts. Thus, MBSA not only supports the safety analysis of the system, it also eases an impact analysis of model changes and hence supports an iterative and agile development of safety-critical systems. This paper presents an MBSA approach for the Open image in new window (HAZOP) studies using a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) for guidance and establishing strong links to the system model and requirements for consistency and traceability. The combination with the DSL and features like auto-completion and consistency checks that we implement in our tool help to detect flaws in the safety analysis at early design stages, when elimination of such flaws is typically cheap as opposed to later development stages. Our approach is evaluated based on a SysML model of Bosch’s Boost Recuperation System (BRS).