Investigation of stresses in HALT (Highly Accelerated Limit Test)

HALT (Highly Accelerated Limit Test) is an accelerated test which, by applying severe stresses, can identify the relative weaknesses of a product in a short amount of time. In this report, by focusing on the six degree of freedom vibration and the combined environment (temperature cycle with vibration), which are characteristic stresses of HALT, the effects of stresses in HALT have been investigated using an aluminum electrolytic capacitor mounting board. As a result, it has been possible to quantitatively evaluate the differences in the test results in correlation with the HALT experimental conditions. It has been found that the failure modes which can be detected during HALT depend on the experimental conditions. Moreover, a traditional random vibration test has been conducted in order to investigate the differences with HALT regarding the failure modes and the effect of stresses. From the comparison between these two experimental methods, it has been understood that HALT can detect a variety of significant failure modes in a shorter amount of time than traditional reliability tests.