Use of a Hazard and Operability Study for Evaluation of ABS Control Logic

A Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP) is a method of system examination that was developed by the chemical processing industry for hazard identification in the design of chemical processing plants. The HAZOP method has been applied to portions of an antilock braking control strategy and was found to be effective for identifying the potential for unintended operation of software control logic. This paper presents an overview of the HAZOP method as it has been adapted to the examination of software control strategies. The paper also provides an example HAZOP examination of a simplified ABS logic element that is representative of part of an ABS control strategy.