Is there a standard for HALT (High Accelerated Life Testing)?

C

Cognizant

Is there a standard for HALT ( high accelerated life testing) ?

Is there a test standard for high accelerated life testing. I need this as a guideline.
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
Cognizant,

HALT for what product?

The HALT standard may be available but if it is it will be part of the product standard.

Here is a interesting presentation of HALT for solar (PV) panels by Sandia who had to resort to much more expensive scientific evaluation in the absence of a HALT standard:

http://energy.sandia.gov/wp/wp-content/gallery/uploads/Sorensen-Sandia_AccAging.pdf

So, first seek the standards for the product that will be subject to highly accelerated testing.

John
 

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C

Cognizant

We have a Generator which outputs RF energy. It has all kinds of electrical components. (transformers, resistors, caps, FETs, etc)
 

Marcelo

Inactive Registered Visitor
Perhaps MIL-HDBK-217?

MIL-HDBK-217 is only for reliability prediction (analysis), not testing.

There?s no specific HALT standard because it depends on the device characteristics. For example, some product standards such as IEC 61215 have HALT testing requirements for a specific product.

Even some generic IEC testing such as dielectric strength are a type of HALT testing (it simulates stresses on the device during it?s lifecycle).

IEST-RP-PR003: HALT AND HASS (http://www.iest.org/Standards-RPs/Recommended-Practices/IEST-RP-PR003) is a recommended pratice for HALT in general.

Also, IEC TC 56 (http://www.iec.ch/dyn/www/f?p=103:7:0::::FSP_ORG_ID,FSP_LANG_ID:1270,25 and http://tc56.iec.ch/about/standards0_1.htm) on dependability deals with dependability and reliability in general, including a lot of standards on reliability testing (take a look at
Projects / Publications - Publications).
 
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Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
NOTE: Long winded "old Man" post ahead...

I would seriously doubt there is a specific test plan in the form of a standard such as MIL-STD-810 for RF generators. Among other things there are many types of RF generators.

That's going back to the 1980's when I was into aerospace electronics. I did take a run down to my barn but I didn't see MIL-HDBK-217. I threw out hundreds of old standards a few years back when I did a garage and barn "clean out". It's here: http://Elsmar.com/pdf_files/Military Standards/, though, in .pdf format if you want to look through it.

Back in those days I wrote QAPPs (Quality Assurance Program Plans). There were some standards like MIL-STD-810 where some test methods came from. The key is what factors do you have to consider. Usually it was multiple things such as aging (usually heat and humidity), vibration (use and transportation), thermal shock, etc. I had to go to multiple sources because of the different anticipated total life cycle of the piece of equipment. One I remember well was fungus testing (storage in uninsulated buildings or under tarps in the tropics). The point is you would get a request for quote with the DoD specifications. From that you had to make a "Life Cycle" plan for the item.

I do remember I had to approve an "accelerated life" test at a company north of Dayton, Ohio back then. They made electric generators. I *think* they were something like 50 or 100 KW - But to your requirement they weren't RF electrical generators, obviously. I had to witness parts of the test and approve their test plan. I don't remember any specific standard which the test was drawn from. They wrote their own spec/test plan. They wrote a test plan where they put maximum load on the generator and ran it constantly for something like 2 weeks or something like that. If I remember correctly their plan was "hours under maximum load". That said I don't remember it specifically being called an accelerated life test plan. There was a contract requirement of X hours without failure and they had to do 5 generators total. I think they had resistor banks set up to provide the load.

Back when I was into that stuff test plans for RF generators were written by the company electrical engineers. Now, we're talking items which were mostly for signal jammers which I wasn't involved in. I was at the circuit card assembly (aerospace navigation, systems controls and such) level, mostly, and comm equipment like the old Wikipedia reference-linkAN/PRC-77 - When I had to do an item level test plan I would get the quote specs/requirements and derive the over all test plan from them.

So - You will probably have to write your own test method using your customer requirements and specifications and be ready to justify your tests and parameters.

As to HALT, I found this: http://www.halthass.co.nz/library-a...technical-papers/halt-hass-testing-standards/ - HALT & HASS Standards : IPC 9592A

The basic plan they have is exactly the base of when I was writing QAPPs:

ipc9592a-halt-testing-standard-process.png

This is from an old painting I did in the late 1980's - It's a combination of different pictures I had in a test plan I wrote. As an aside, this was done on a Mac Plus and writing those plans was done in the old WordStar but the company I worked for sprang for a Mac and laser printer for writing test plans.

Old%20ESS%20environmental%20stres.gif

I have a *lot* of old MacPaint and Superpaint files of test plan graphics (I have files going back to 1986), but I'd have to pull out an old Mac OS 8 or 9 computer out of the closet and try to convert them to a readable format. I can not find any converter for Mac or PC today. And they'd be of dubious value today, anyway.

But even that test sequence is variable - It depends upon the application. For example, "Combined Thermal and Vibration" was mostly called out in specifications for electrical connectors (especially bulkhead connectors). CCAs. Complete items such as radios rarely had that in the test plan in part because of costs to send stuff to Wyle and in part because with regard to temperature standard thermal cycling and then vibration was considered acceptable to prove reliability in use environment. Back then I had to send a lot of stuff to Wyle labs (http://www.wyle.com - Wikipedia reference-linkWyle_Laboratories) to get that stuff done. We had shakers for vibration, but the heat thing added on was very difficult and it really tore up the shakers holding the UUT. We did build a heat temperature "cover" for a shaker for a connector customer but that was pretty much a disaster with respect to costs.

I am not very familiar with HALT so I did take a few minutes to research it. Wikipedia reference-linkHighly_Accelerated_Life_Test really doesn't say much. It's just what I knew as Accelerated Life Tests for High Reliability Electronics which was my specialty at the time. Note that this was the era of the change over from leaded thru-board components to surface mount technology and SMT was somewhat unreliable, especially with regard to vibration. That is how I got involved in automotive - Ford was a client at the time because their new "computers" and their car sound systems had a very high failure rates.

I'm not sure if my diatribe has helped, but maybe it will give you some things to think about. I'm not too much into email for stuff like this, but if you want to discuss designing test plans just give me a call.
 

Marcelo

Inactive Registered Visitor
I'm not sure if my diatribe has helped, but maybe it will give you some things to think about.

It sure does. Your practical experience is really better than any standard (as standards would only reflect experiences in a particular area anyway), and in this case as I think there?s no particular generic standard, experience is what really shows how to implement this kind of stuff.
 
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