The product life-cycle testing involves a series of evaluations conducted throughout its lifespan, from development to disposal. This type of test is crucial for ensuring durability, reliability, and the device's safety under various conditions. Here's a breakdown of the typical stages involved in life-cycle testing for a device:
Development Stage Testing:
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Prototyping: initial testing often begins with prototypes to validate design concepts and functionalities.
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Component Testing: testing individual components to ensure they meet specifications and perform reliably.
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Integration Testing: testing how components work together within the device.
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Environmental testing: subjecting prototypes to various environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, humidity, vibration) to ensure they can withstand real-world conditions.
Field Testing:
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Reliability Testing: subjecting the device to prolonged use under normal operating conditions to assess its reliability over time.
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Performance testing: evaluates the device's performance in real-world scenarios and under different loads.
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User Experience Testing: gathering feedback from users to understand their experience with the device and identify any usability issues or improvements needed.
The reliability test plan
Developing a reliability test plan involves several steps to ensure that a product or system meets the desired level of reliability. Here's a comprehensive outline for creating a reliability test plan:
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Define Objectives
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Identify Critical Components
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Establish Reliability Metrics
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Select Testing Methods
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Develop Test Procedures
Life cycle testing
Life cycle testing makes it possible to estimate the reliability and durability of a product using accelerated stress conditions for each stage of its life cycle. The test examines an extensive sample of tested units that operate under normal and extreme environmental conditions.
Accelerated degradation tests
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High Accelerated Life Testing (HALT)
HALT is a discovery test. The objective is to carry out the necessary actions to identify and eliminate defects in the product. In HALT, each stimulus of the test (temperature, vibration on all axes, humidity, UV radiation, etc.) can be used under accelerated environmental conditions during the development phase of a product to find weak links in the processes of design and manufacturing.
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High Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS)
HASS uses accelerated constraints (beyond product specifications) to detect defects in production displays. The accelerated conditions of the HASS program shorten the time to discover defective units and, therefore, the corrective actions.
The accelerated product life-cycle testing result is then analyzed and merged into the final reliability report.
By following the above steps, we can create a robust life-cycle test plan that effectively evaluates the reliability of your product or system.
For an MTBF/MTTF reliability estimate, contact us at info@expertemc.com or by phone at 1 (438) 898-7005