Requirements traceability in simulation driven mechanical engineering

Research output: ThesisMaster's thesis

Abstract

Requirements traceability is an essential part of the product development process as all development work is based on requirements. When the amount of requirements increases so does the difficulty to notice changes in them and in other related engineering artefacts. To support the design process computer simulation and analysis were introduced to the discipline of requirements engineering. Simulation provides means to verify and validate engineering artefacts, which in this thesis was studied in the context of requirements traceability from stakeholder requirements to design and verification in a mechanical engineering case. Providing sufficient traceability also required version control and impact analysis to trace the impact of changes in the artefacts.

Relevant artefacts and their relations were defined by Systems Engineering Artefacts Model (SEAModel), which supports mechanical system design and simulation. SEAModel was transformed into a traceability information model (TIM) to form traceability links between artefacts. TIM was used to create a case dependent traceability demonstration model to depict the traceability chain in the case related environment. To implement traceability and impact analysis according to these models, a database oriented software platform is required. This thesis introduced an integration and traceability platform (ITP) composed of IBM Rational DOORS for an environment to trace artefacts and Subversion version control software (SVN) for version management. Traced artefacts were produced with IBM Rational DOORS, Papyrys SysML, SolidWorks and MATLAB. With this heterogeneous set of state-of-the-art software applications a logical architecture model was created to represent the mechanical structure of the machine depicted in the case. According to the logical model a detailed CAD model was updated to fit the new stakeholder requirements. Requirements were stored and managed in a requirements management tool. Later the CAD model was verified and validated with a simulation model. The integration of engineering artefacts was accomplished by adopting the so called surrogate object method, in which model files were represented as surrogate objects within the ITP.

The results of this thesis implicated that requirements engineering can be extended to cover simulation artefacts with SEAModel. Impact analysis and traceability were able to be combined with a tailored solution of the surrogate object method. Although optimal granularity and visibility of all data in all tools could not be achieved, a file level granularity of model elements was met with satisfactory results.
Original languageEnglish
QualificationMaster Degree
Awarding Institution
  • Tampere University of Technology (TUT)
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Alanen, Jarmo, Supervisor
  • Ellman, Asko, Supervisor, External person
Award date5 Apr 2016
Publisher
Publication statusPublished - 5 Apr 2016
MoE publication typeG2 Master's thesis, polytechnic Master's thesis

Keywords

  • Requirements
  • Traceability
  • Systems Engineering
  • Simulation
  • Mechanical engineering
  • Impact analysis
  • Surrogate object method

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