Towards early detection of model conflicts in the design of the MYRRHA reactor in a systems engineering approach

The MYRRHA project aims to realise a sub-critical nuclear reactor coupled to a 600 MeV proton accelerator. Systems engineering was chosen as a paradigm to tame the multi-faceted complexity of such an endeavour across the various stages of its life-cycle. Tools, such as Polarion, are used to create and maintain a knowledge base of design assets as well as to facilitate the creation of up-to-date documents; still, discrepancies can exist between the knowledge base and the design models, only the latter of which timely capture the current envisaged design. This paper introduces the elements of an approach aiming to create a robust link between design models and technical documents. Such a robust link could be used to timely detect models conflicts; to lessen the document-centric management of life-cycle milestones; and to semi-automatically update the system knowledge base. As a proof of concepts, compliant tools and preliminary results are presented.