Moisture Failure Mechanisms

Abstract

Join Kirk and Fred  discuss failure mechanisms caused by or accelerated by moisture.

Key Points

Join Kirk and Fred as they discuss how water, especially saltwater, can cause failures.
Topics include:

• Even if you think making an O-ring seal in outdoor equipment will keep moisture out, it will still leak enough over time to equalize the external moisture level. Every seal leaks; it is just a matter of time to change the rate of leakage as seals degrade
• Moisture in component encapsulations can cause “popcorning” in re-flow, which isn’t immediately detected but makes a small crack that will eventually fail from moisture intrusion.
• Frozen water in the form of hailstones striking solar panels is a potential cause of failures that they must be able to withstand.
• Even though automobiles are designed to withstand all kinds of rain and other environmental extremes, the hurricanes hitting Florida and North Carolina have flooded many cars, which are not designed to withstand water immersion, resulting in many time dependent latent failure mechanisms.
• Humidity is sometimes increased in dry climates such as here in Colorado for electronics  printed wiring assembly manufacturing to reduce the risk of ESD damage

Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques to field data analysis approaches.

SOR 1015 Moisture Failure MechanismsKirk Gray

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Show Notes

Please click on this link to access a relatively new analysis of traditional reliability prediction methods article from the US ARMY and CALCE titled  “Reliability Prediction – Continued Reliance on a Misleading Approach”. It is in the public domain, so please distribute freely. Trying to predict reliability for development is a misleading a costly approach.

You can now purchase the most recent recording of Kirk Gray’s Hobbs Engineering 8 (two 4 hour sessions) hour Webinar “Rapid and Robust Reliability Development – 2022 HALT & HASS Methodologies Online Seminar” from this link.

For more information on the newest discovery testing methodology here is a link to the book “Next Generation HALT and HASS: Robust design of Electronics and Systems” written by Kirk Gray and John Paschkewitz.