Health Monitoring and Prognostics of Electronics Subject to Vibration Load Conditions

This paper discusses a health monitoring and prognostics methodology for assessing the reliability of a group of electronic components mounted on a printed circuit board by using strain gauges and an accelerometer to monitor the life-cycle vibration loads. These loads were converted into the component interconnects´ stress values, which were then used in a vibration failure fatigue model for damage assessment. Damage estimates were accumulated using Miner´s rule and then used to predict the life consumed and remaining life. The results were verified by experimentally measuring component lives through real-time daisy-chain resistance measurements.