Validation test case generation based on safety analysis ontology

Validation tests in the current nuclear industry practice are typically performed in an ad hoc fashion. This study presents a systematic and objective method of generating validation test cases from a Safety Analysis Report (SAR). A domain-specific ontology was designed and used to mark up a SAR; relevant information was then extracted from the marked-up document for use in automatically generating validation test cases that satisfy the proposed test coverage criteria; namely, single parameter coverage, use case coverage, abnormal condition coverage, and scenario coverage. The novelty of this technique is its systematic rather than ad hoc test case generation from a SAR to achieve high test coverage.

► Current practice in validation test case generation for nuclear system is mainly ad hoc.
► This study designs a systematic approach to generate validation test cases from a Safety Analysis Report.
► It is based on a domain-specific ontology.
► Test coverage criteria have been defined and satisfied.
► A computerized toolset has been implemented to assist the proposed approach.