Accelerated Life Testing
Application ID: 17361
Fatigue testing of nonlinear materials with creep mechanism is a time-consuming process. In accelerated life testing the experiment time is greatly reduced by subjecting the material to testing conditions in excess of the operating one. In the model an aggressive thermal load cycle is simulated and its effect on the fatigue life of a solder joint is examined.
This example demonstrates how to evaluate fatigue driven by a specific strain or energy quantity and therefore a simple schematic representation of an electronic component is used. Moreover only one cycle is simulated as opposed to several that are required to obtain a steady state cycle when working with nonlinear materials. This simplification is motivated by the fact that the purpose of this model is to show how to evaluate fatigue based on a user defined variable. The required strain and energy variables are defined explicitly via ordinary differential equations and are calculated during the simulation of the thermal load cycle.
This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products:
however, additional products may be required to completely define and model it. Furthermore, this example may also be defined and modeled using components from the following product combinations:
- COMSOL Multiphysics® and
- Fatigue Module and
- Nonlinear Structural Materials Module and
- Structural Mechanics Module
The combination of COMSOL® products required to model your application depends on several factors and may include boundary conditions, material properties, physics interfaces, and part libraries. Particular functionality may be common to several products. To determine the right combination of products for your modeling needs, review the Specification Chart and make use of a free evaluation license. The COMSOL Sales and Support teams are available for answering any questions you may have regarding this.