The nuclear industry does not certify software, even Ansys. Unlike ISO 9001, there is no certificate of compliance with NQA-1 and 10 CFR (the main nuclear standards). Companies licensed by their relevant government agencies to operate nuclear facilities need show that they and their suppliers used processes conforming the NQA-1 and 10 CFR requirements---otherwise they don't get licensed. Companies have to conduct their own audits, but the NRC in the USA has allowed US nuclear power utilities to share audit results indirectly by essentially having a common set of approved vendors, where someone has done the audit for each vendor.
SIMULIA does have formal certification for ISO 9001, and our quality management system includes some additional things specific to NQA-1 and 10 CFR. So far, all the audits by our customers doing nuclear work have found that our system does indeed comply with the requirements.
In term of Abaqus, please recall that Verification refers to mathematical correctness of the software whereas Validation refers to consistency of models with physical reality. Verification can thus be done on the software whereas Validation must be done on the models. Users have access to all of our Verification tests and their documentation. Our examples and benchmarks demonstrate that the capabilities of Abaqus allow users to model certain aspects of physical reality accurately, but validation of any given model is the responsibility of the engineers making/using the model.
Cordialement / Best regards,
________________________________
Greg BROWN
SIMULIA Product Management
Office: +1 401276 8187
Mobile: 781 640 2273
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Dassault Systèmes | www.3ds.com <http://www.3ds.com>
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