Rapid Life Testing By: James Weber

Rapid Life Testing Overview • What is Rapid Life Testing?

• Why Use Rapid Life Testing?

• Types of Rapid Testing • IBM’s “Ultimate Testing Sequence” • Paper Clip Example • Summary

What is Rapid Life Testing?

• An accelerated testing procedure that tests a product's overall durability and dependability • Accelerate the time to a product’s failure • Helps in determining the weakest points of a product

Why Use Rapid Life Testing?

• Customers not only demand quality, they expect it • Making it, breaking it, and fixing it in-house and before release cuts product failure by 90% and saves you time and money

Types of Rapid Life Testing • Qualitative Accelerated Life Testing – interested in identifying failures and failure modes • Quantitative Accelerated Life Testing – interested in predicting the life of the product

Qualitative Accelerated Life Testing • The product is tested with a single high level stress and has two possible outcomes – If the product passes the stress level, then it will be subjected to another stress level – If the product fails, the product will need to be redesigned to pass the next time

Qualitative Accelerated Life Testing Techniques • Elephant Tests • Torture Tests • HALT Tests • Shake and Bake Tests

Quantitative Accelerated Life Testing • “Time-to-Failure” testing – How long it takes before a product begins to fail • The goal is to understand, measure, and predict any failure that may occur

Quantitative Accelerated Life Testing Techniques • Usage Rate Acceleration – Over-using a product • Overstress Acceleration – Adding stresses to constantly running product • Stresses and Stress Levels

Who uses Rapid Life Testing?

• IBM – Mission to produce laptops that withstand whatever a customer may put it through – Uses Rapid Life Testing to accomplish this goal – IBM leads the industry in quality and product design excellence

IBM’s “Ultimate Testing Sequence” • Shake and Bake Sequence • Bake Test – operating the laptop in a 120 degrees F oven 24 hours a day for several weeks • “Earthquake” Test – Laptop attached both horizontally and vertically to a 2-ton block of granite which violently shakes

IBM’s “Ultimate Testing Sequence” • Torque Test – A robot will put 50 to 100 pounds of pressure down on one key and then release it. • Crash Test – Another robot gently and precisely picks up a computer, places it carefully on a sled and then whips it to the end where it crashes to the floor

IBM’s “Ultimate Testing Sequence” • Travel Test – Manufacturers want to be sure the products can withstand the long haul over bumpy roads and through clumsy fingers on their journey to stores across the country • How IBM does it – IBM first checks the packaging for the laptop

IBM’s “Ultimate Testing Sequence” • Laptops are shot along a rail, roller coaster-style, before slamming into an unforgiving steel barrier at the end of the test track • They're also dropped on every side, corner and seam at heights approximating those of a person's outstretched arms

IBM Rapid Life Testing Summary • Rapid Life Testing cuts IBM’s costs • IBM allows the defects to be found in-house rather than by the customer • IBM leads the industry in quality and product design excellence

Paper Clip Example • To illustrate accelerated life testing, let’s take a look at the simple example of bending a paper until it breaks keeping track of the amount of bends applied • Let us begin

Open The Paperclip • With one hand, hold the clip by the longer, outer loop • With the thumb and forefinger of the other hand, grasp the smaller, inner loop • Pull the smaller, inner loop out and down 90 degrees so that a right angle is formed as shown

Close The Paperclip • With one hand, continue to hold the clip by the longer, outer loop.

• With the thumb and forefinger of the other hand, grasp the smaller, inner loop.

• Push the smaller inner loop up and in 90 degrees so that the smaller loop is returned to the original upright position in line with the larger, outer loop as shown

Count and Record Data • This counts as one cycle • Continue the cycles until the paperclip breaks • Count and record the cycles-to failure for each clip

Summary • Customers demand Quality • Products need to be thoroughly tested to determine weak points • Rapid Life Testing can locate these weak points quickly • Bottom Line: Rapid Life Testing leads to higher quality, less product failures and more revenue

Reading List • Information for this presentation were from a variety of Online Resources: • http://www.weibull.com/AccelTe stWeb/acceltestweb.htm

• http://www.advanced input.com/AIDpdfDownloads/HAL T-HASS.pdf

Reading List cont.

• http://www.amsaa.army.mil/rad/a lt/alt2.htm

• http://www.advanced input.com/AIDpdfDownloads/HAL T-HASS.pdf • http://www.waketech.edu/math/n sfgrant/2001Buehler/Buehler_ht m/ProfileBrianSmith.html

Reading List cont.

• http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/think/ quality.html

• http://www.popularmechanics.co

m/technology/computers/1997/8/ Torture_Testing/index2.phtml