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NSGen: A Template-Based Framework to Find Bugs in Computer-Aided Engineering Tools
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DOI：10.1109/tse.2026.3687867.png)
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Abstract
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Computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools are extensively used in safety-critical domains like aerospace design to simulate real-world physical processes on computers at reduced costs. However, CAE tools are prone to bugs, leading to incorrect simulation and serious design flaws. Existing testing methods have limited success in finding these bugs, since constructing test cases for CAE tools (known as CAE inputs) is challenging, due to the complexity of input parameter constraints and the differences of input syntax for each tool. Therefore, we propose NSGen, a template-based <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i>umerical <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">S</i>imulation test case <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">GEN</i>erator for effective CAE input generation. To bridge input differences, NSGen designs general syntax rules that ignore semantic details of CAE inputs but retaining the format and validity of these inputs for different CAE tools. NSGen then designs semantic rules to define the parameters and their intricate constraints (i.e., dependency, exclusion, and extension). By instantiating these rules as templates, valid CAE inputs are generated using a syntax parser implemented by NSGen. Experiments show that NSGen can effectively generate CAE inputs with less than 0.33 second on average, triggering 6.28 to 10.55 times more potential issues than the baseline. Using these inputs, NSGen finds 12 bugs in popular CAE tools, including crash bugs and instability bugs.
Keywords:
Test case generation
computer-aided engineering
template
differential test
software test
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