Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 36 (10) 2022
1007/s12206-022-0903-2
Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 36 (10) 2022
Original Article
DOI 10.1007/s12206-022-0903-2
Keywords:
· Accelerated life test
· Failure analysis
· Failure mechanism
· Lifetime estimation
· Reliability assessment
Correspondence to:
Daeil Kwon
dikwon@skku.edu
Citation:
Kang, M., Kwon, D. (2022). Failure
mechanism-based reliability assessment
framework: a case study in an automotive
component. Journal of Mechanical Sci-
ence and Technology 36 (10) (2022)
4895~4903.
http://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-022-0903-2
Received April 27th, 2022
Revised June 15th, 2022
Accepted June 15th, 2022
† This paper was presented at PHMAP
2021, Ramada Plaza Jeju Hotel, Jeju,
Korea, September 8-11, 2021
Recommended by Guest Editor
Sang Won Lee
© The Korean Society of Mechanical
Engineers and Springer-Verlag GmbH
Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022
DOI 10.
Failure mechanism-based reliability
assessment framework: a case study in
an automotive component
Moonsik Kang and Daeil Kwon
Department of Industrial Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Korea
Abstract This paper presents a framework for failure mechanism-based reliability as-
sessment, starting from collecting failed field samples. The framework includes failure analysis
for identifying the failure mechanism and accelerated life tests (ALTs) for reproducing the failure
mechanism. We consider that relevant information, such as warranty data and qualification test
results, enables to be utilized in the framework. The proposed framework is validated by using
it to identify the failure mechanism and estimate the lifetime of an automotive component under
normal use conditions. The case study shows that the framework enables to quantitatively as-
sess reliability based on the failure mechanism.
1. Introduction
Reliability describes the ability of a product to perform its required function for a specified time
in its life cycle conditions [1]. Reliability is considered as an essential characteristic that con-
cerns both customers and manufacturers. Customers expect their purchases to operate nor-
mally through-out the usage duration and manufacturers make efforts to design and manufac-
ture reliable product to survive in a highly competitive global market. Failure to ensure the ex-
pected lifetime of a product could lead warranty claims and related economic and reputation
loss in the market [2]. Therefore, assessing the reliability of a product is vital for manufacturers.
With the rapid development of technologies, today’s products have long lifetime and high re-
liability while manufacturers are required to assess the reliability of their products in a feasible
amount of time [3]. Under this circumstance, accelerated life tests (ALTs) are widely used to
assess reliability including lifetime and probability of failure under nor-mal use conditions. In
ALTs, test units are subjected to the elevated stress levels. The lifetime of a product under use
conditions can be estimated by extrapolating failure data of the test units via physics-based or
empirical model. The practical applications of ALTs in the literatures include brazed plate heat
exchanger [4], pneumatic cylinder [5], pump motor assembly [6], cooling fan motors of an auto-
mobile [7], knock sensors located in the engine block [8].
In order to properly assess the reliability of products, it is necessary to understand the proc-
ess of failure because reliability significantly depends on the stresses that products experience
in the field and the failures occurring under the field conditions. Failure mechanisms are identi-
fied as “processes by which the specific combination of physical, electrical, chemical and me-
chanical stresses induce failure” [9]. If the stresses applied during ALTs produce failure
mechanisms that are different from those observed under use conditions, the test results can-
not be representative for the reliability under use condition [10]. Therefore, ALTs have to be
designed based on failure mechanism analysis so that the same failure mechanisms observed
under use conditions are accelerated.
Prior to ALTs, one of the ways to identify failure mechanisms is to collect failed field products
and then to conduct failure analysis through the products [11]. Failed products from field envi-
ronments provide valuable information, and failure analysis seeks to identify failure mode,
cause, and mechanism. In the recent decades, several researchers and research groups pro-
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 Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 36 (10) 2022
posed failure analysis procedures in various applications. Re-
nesas Electronics Corporation [12] provided general failure
analysis procedure for semiconductors, with usable analysis
methods for each step. Li et al. [13] showed the process of
failure analysis, nondestructive and destructive examinations
that were used to identify the cause of solder joint failure. So-
den and Anderson [14] comprehensively reviewed techniques
and tools, such as electrical measurement techniques and X-
ray micro analysis for integrated circuit failure analysis. Appro-
priate approaches for failure analysis enable to understand
field operating conditions and process of failure. For example,
cracks of an automotive ball joint due to fatigue induced by
dynamic mechanical loading [15], fatigue failure of automotive
electronics induced by vibration during transportation [16],
coating cracking of a gas turbine blade due to thermal fatigue
mechanism [17].
This paper presents a framework and provides a methodol-
ogy for failure mechanism-based reliability assessment utiliz-
ing engineering information. The engineering information in-
cludes warranty data, some documents such as failure mode
and effect analysis (FMEA) and fault tree analysis (FTA), quali-
fication test results and domain knowledge. This paper particu-
larly focuses on the procedure of failure analysis and reliability
assessment using ALTs. A case study involving identification of
failure mechanism and life-time estimation for one of the auto-
motive electronics is demonstrated. The rest of paper is organ-
ized as follows: Sec. 2 describes the proposed methodology
and illustrates its steps. Sec. 3 discusses the case study and
presents the result of lifetime estimation. The final section pre-
sents some conclusions.
2. Methodology structure
Figs. 1 and 2 show the process of failure analysis and reli-
ability assessment based on ALTs. The methodology is de-
scribed in the following sections.
2.1 Failure analysis
A flow chart of failure analysis in this paper is given in Fig. 1.
The flow chart includes three main steps. Starting from collect-
ing failed field samples, the failure analysis is designed to iden-
tify failure mode and site, failure cause, and failure mechanism.
To start failure analysis, there is an assumption in this paper; It
was predetermined which physical components of systems are
subject to reliability assessment with warranty data, customer
needs, or other criteria (e.g., a door latch assembly of a vehicle,
an audio module of a smartphone).
2.1.1 Failure mode and site identification
Failure mode and site identification via various non-
destructive and destructive tests is the first step, using failed
field samples; those contain valuable information for determin-
ing specific failure mode and site. Failure analysis starts with
non-destructive tests, followed by destructive tests. Non-
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DOI 10.1007/s12206-022-0903-2
Fig. 1. Flow chart of failure analysis.
destructive tests include visual inspection, optical microscopy
and X-ray microscopy to determine internal and external de-
fects on the samples. Electrical tests detect shorts, opens,
change in electrical resistant, and other abnormal electrical
behavior. Destructive tests include cross-sectioning to reveal
internal defects and tensile strength and hardness measure-
ment to measure the change in mechanical characteristics. For
the more useful test techniques, please refer to Refs. [12, 14,
18, 19]. Some information helps to prioritize tests that need to
be conduct. For example, referring to document such as failure
mode and effect analysis (FMEA) and fault tree analysis (FTA)
that preformed in design and development phases, tests capa-
ble for detecting failure modes which can induce target failure
effect can be conducted firstly.
2.1.2 Failure cause identification
After identifying the failure mode and site, it is necessary to
identify the cause of failure. Failure causes are the factors that
lead to failure during design, manufacturing and use; their re-
moval eliminates failure [20]. Life cycle profile (LCP) analysis is
one of the approaches for identifying the cause of failure. LCP
refers to the assessment of events and environmental condi-
tions of a product during its life cycle. [21]. Mathew et al. [22]
analyzed the vibration time history of a circuit card assembly in
the space shuttle solid rocket booster. Johnson et al. [23] pre-
sented that underhood temperature can be as high as 150 °C
in an automotive environment and they studied reliability issues
related to electronics under high temperature. Brief environ-
mental stresses (possible causes) and their corresponding
effects are listed in Table 1. For more details, refer to Ref. [1].
2.1.3 Failure mechanism identification
The final step of failure analysis is to identify failure mecha-
nism. The failure mechanism may be classified as overstress
mechanisms or wearout mechanisms. Failure mechanisms
due to stresses that exceed the intrinsic strength of a product
 Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 36 (10) 2022 DOI 10.1007/s12206-022-0903-2

Table 1. Environmental stresses and their corresponding effects [1].

Stress Effects
·Physical expansion
·Thermal aging, oxidation
High temperature ·Viscosity reduction
·Evaporation of lubricant
·Electrical parameter change
·Embrittlement of materials
Low temperature
·Physical contraction
·Loss of mechanical strength
·Structural collapse
Shock, vibration
·Cracking and rupture
·Looseness of interconnects
·Oxidation
High humidity ·Corrosion
·Electrical leakage
Fig. 2. Flow chart of accelerated life tests.
·Moisture generation
Temperature change
·Mechanical stress between coupled materials
·Scratch and abrasion on surface of material formed to obtain failure data at elevated stress levels based on
Sand, dust the knowledge of the identified failure mechanism. Therefore,
·Contamination of lubricant
the flow chart assumes that the failure mechanisms are identi-
fied prior to ALTs.
Table 2. Typical failure mechanisms [24].

Stress Overstress mechanism Wearout mechanism 2.2.1 Accelerated stresses

Yield, fracture, The first step is to investigate and select significant stresses
Mechanical Fatigue, creep, wear that accelerate the identified failure mechanisms. ALTs can be
interfacial de-adhesion
Glass transition, performed at high temperature, humidity, vibration, and combi-
Thermal Stress driven diffusion voiding
phase transition nations of stresses to stimulate the failure mechanism. Table 3
Time-dependent dielectric shows common failure mechanisms and their corresponding
Dielectric breakdown,
electrical overstress,
breakdown (TDDB), accelerated stresses provided by Refs. [10, 25]. Analysis of
Electrical electromigration, surface charge warranty data can be one of the approaches that help to select
electrostatic discharge,
spreading, hot electrons,
second breakdown accelerated stresses. For example, if warranty data shows
slow trapping
target failures were often reported from region with high humid-
Radiation embrittlement,
Radiation Single event upset ity environment compared to those with low humidity, it de-
charge trapping in oxides
serves to investigate the effect of humidity on the failure
Corrosion, dendrite growth,
Chemical - depolymerization, intermetallic
mechanism. Once the effect is confirmed with related literature
growth or domain knowledge, humidity can be selected as the accel-
erated stress.

are called overstress mechanism. Wearout mechanisms refer
to failure due to the accumulation of damage via repeated
stresses. Typical failure mechanisms are summarized in Table
2 [24]. Engineers should deduce the failure mechanisms based
on the identified failure mode and cause to understand the
process of failure under use condition. Furthermore, variables
of ALTs such as types of stress, level of stresses should be
determined based on the knowledge of the identified failure
mechanisms.
2.2 Accelerated life tests (ALTs)
A flow chart of reliability assessment based on ALTs is
shown in Fig. 2. The objective of this process is to describe the
relationship between stress and lifetime, and to analyze reliabil-
ity including lifetime of products under normal use conditions.
To accomplish the objectives, ALTs are designed and per-
2.2.2 Accelerated life tests planning
During test planning, number of stress levels, levels of stress
and number of test units at each stress level need to be con-
sidered. These variables need to be determined according to
various considerations, such as limited time, budget and capa-
bility of the test equipment [26]. It is notice-able that all stress
levels have to be selected within the range that induces the
same failure mechanism observed under normal use condi-
tions. It is recommended to select stress levels as close as
possible to normal use condition considering available test time
to avoid excess extrapolating lifetime data at the elevated
stress levels to use condition level. The larger the number of
stress level and test units, the more accurate the results of
lifetime estimation under normal use condition, while the test
takes longer [27]. ALTs are generally conducted at two stress
levels or three stress levels. It is recommended to allocate a
higher number of test units to a lower stress level [28]. Two-

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Table 3. Failure mechanisms and their corresponding accelerated stresses

[10, 25].

Failure mechanism Accelerated stresses

Mechanical stress range,
Fatigue
cyclic temperature range, frequency
Creep Mechanical stress, temperature
Wear Contact force relative sliding velocity
Diffusion Temperature, concentration gradient
Electromigration Current density, temperature
Surface charge spreading Temperature
Slow trapping Temperature
Fig. 3. Stress-lifetime relationship.
Radiation damage Intensity of radiation
Corrosion Temperature, relative humidity
Eyring model. Among them, the Arrhenius model is commonly
used to model the dependence of a failure mechanism on
level ALT is simple but cannot test the validity of the stress- temperature. Arrhenius model is given by Eq. (2).
lifetime relationship there are only two stress levels. For this
reason, three-level ALT was proposed and a sample allocation ⎛E ⎞
ratio of 4:2:1 at lowest, middle and highest stress levels was L = A exp ⎜ a ⎟ (2)
⎝ kT ⎠
presented [29].
where L is a life characteristic, A is a constant to be
2.2.3 Accelerated life test data analysis
determined, Ea is the activation energy for failure mechanism
This section includes life distribution and stress-lifetime
to be determined, k is the Boltzman’s constant (8.6171 x 10-5
model selection, stress-lifetime relationship modeling and de-
eV/K), and T is the absolute temperature.
riving reliability information such as lifetime in normal use con-
Once a life distribution and stress-lifetime model are selected,
dition after ALTs.
the combination of the life distribution and the model is fitted to
The first step in the failure data analysis is to select an ap-
the ALTs data. For the stress-lifetime relationship, some meth-
propriate life distribution. In ALTs, failure data at different stress
ods are available to estimate the parameters of the model,
levels are assumed to be fitted a common distribution. Popular
such as the least-squares method and the maximum likelihood
life distributions include normal distribution, Weibull distribution,
estimation (MLE) method. Some reliability information, such as
lognormal distribution and exponential distribution. Serval
lifetime under use condition, can be obtained based on stress-
goodness of fit test such as Anderson-Darling test and Kolmo-
lifetime relationship, as shown in Fig. 3.
gorov-Smirnov test, could be used to evaluate the suitability of
the distributions. Among various life distributions, Weibull dis-
tribution is most widely used owing to its flexibility. The cumula- 3. Case study: steering roll connector mod-
tive distribution function of the two of the two-parameter ules
Weibull distribution is given by Eq. (1).
Automotive steering roll connector (SRC) modules were se-
lected as the case study in this research. Failure analysis and
⎡ ⎛t ⎞ β
⎤
F ( t ) = 1 − exp ⎢ − ⎜ ⎟ ⎥, t > 0 (1) reliability assessment results are presented based on proposed
⎢⎣ ⎝ α ⎠ ⎥⎦ methodology in Sec. 2. In the following sections, the steps of
proposed procedures are illustrated for SRC modules.
where β means the shape parameter, α means the scale
parameter called life characteristic, and t means the opera- 3.1 Structure and functionality of the SRC mod-
tion time or cycle. ules
It was generally assumed that the scale parameters depends
on the stress levels while the shape parameter while the shape A steering roll connector (SRC) module is an automotive
parameter is constant [26]. electronic located between a steering column and a steering
After selecting a life distribution that is appropriate for the fail- wheel, as shown in Fig. 4. SRC modules are used to electri-
ure data, the stress-lifetime model should then be determined. cally connect steering wheels to electrical steering wheel-
The models describe the life characteristic of the life distribution mounted systems such as horn and steering wheel heating
such as the scale parameter of Weibull distribution from one systems in vehicles. This module is also responsible for com-
stress level to another. A stress-lifetime relationship can be municating signals to activate the airbag mounted on the steer-
obtained from physic-based or empirical models, e.g., power ing wheel. There are spirally wound flexible flat cables (FFCs)
law model, Arrhenius model, inverse power law model and inside an SRC module, as shown in Fig. 5. FFCs enable an

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 Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 36 (10) 2022
Fig. 4. Flow chart of accelerated life tests.
Fig. 5. Flow chart of accelerated life tests.
SRC module to maintain an electrical connection to the steer-
ing wheel-mounted system while the steering wheel is turning.
3.2 Failure analysis
In the automotive environment, electrical connection loss of
the SRC module leads to the steering wheel-mounted systems
malfunctioning. Failure analysis of field failed SRC modules
identified that the FFC failed owing to cracking in the conduc-
tive copper foil of an FFC, as shown in Fig. 6. It was also found
that electrical resistance of FFCs increased.
In life cycle conditions of SRC modules, FFCs bend corre-
sponding to the turning direction of the steering wheel when a
steering wheel turns to the left or right. FFCs under repeated
bending stresses may result in a loss of electrical connection to
the steering wheel-mounted systems owing to fatigue cracks.
Kown and Kim [30] studied the effect of environmental condi-
tions (high temperature and high humidity) and repeated bend-
ing stresses on flexible electronics. They showed no change in
the electrical resistance of flexible electronics without repeated
bending stress, although the tests were conducted under con-
ditions of high temperature and humidity. In contrast, the elec-
trical resistance significantly increased under repeated bending
stress condition. This verifies that repeated bending stress is
the cause of failure and fatigue is the failure mechanism in the
case of SRC modules.
3.3 Accelerated stresses and stress-lifetime mod-
el
One of the possible accelerated stresses is bending stress
DOI 10.1007/s12206-022-0903-2
Table 4. Average annual temperature of the regions where many failures
had been reported.
Rank Region Average annual temperature (°C)
1 A 30.9
2 B 30.7
3 C 32.7
4 D 24
5 E 29.6
6 F 32.4
Fig. 6. A crack in a copper foil of an FFC in a failed field SRC module.
amplitude. Alzoubi et al. [31] studied the effect of bending di-
ameter on the change in electrical resistance of Indium-tin-
oxide (ITO) thin films. They showed the smaller bending di-
ameter that produces higher bending stress, the higher %-
change in electrical resistance due to cracks. Hamasha et al.
[32] also found that bending diameter have a significant influ-
ence on the high cycle fatigue life of aluminum thin films.
Moreover, temperature is another possible accelerated
stress besides bending stress amplitude. Many SRC module
failures were reported from the hot regions based on the manu-
facturer’s study, as presented in Table. 4. The effect of tem-
perature on the fatigue life of flexible electronics has been ex-
tensively investigated by many researchers. Alzoubi et al. [33]
found that the %-change in electrical resistance and crack
length of copper film coated on polyethylene terephthalate
(PET) substrate increased faster with increasing temperature
(23 °C, 50 °C and 100 °C) under cyclic bending. Lee et al. [34]
found that fatigue life of silver (Ag) thin film on a PET substrate
was reduced at elevated temperatures (50 °C, 70 °C).
Among bending stress amplitude and temperature, tempera-
ture was selected as the accelerated stress to estimate lifetime
of SRC modules under various temperature-based field envi-
ronments. Arrhenius model was selected for the temperature-
lifetime relationship.
3.4 Accelerated life tests planning
The tests were designed to accelerate fatigue life of FFCs
under elevated temperature. The fatigue test was designed to
apply repeated bending stress to FFCs by reciprocating motion
to moving parts of the test equipment, as shown in Fig. 7. The
gap between the fixed plates and the moving plates was de-
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Table 5. Summary of estimated parameters of weibull distribution and

arrhenius model.

Parameter Value
Shape parameter β 7.7
Constant A 0.3846
Activation energy Ea 0.4807

Fig. 7. Fatigue test equipment.

Fig. 9. Weibull probability plot of the lifetime at each stress levels.

Fig. 8. Electrical resistance response of an FFC during fatigue test.

fined as the actual bending diameter of the FFCs in the SRC

module. The moving distance was set to make initial bending
area of an FFC fully flat for the maximum bending stress. The
equipment for fatigue test were placed inside a constant tem-
perature chamber. The FFCs were exposed to elevated tem-
peratures while being subjected to cyclic bending fatigue stress
based on the designed test method. The stress levels of tem-
perature were set as 75 °C and 85 °C. The number of test units
was 10 at 75 °C and 7 at 85 °C, respectively.
During the test, the electrical resistance of the FFCs was
measured. The failure criteria was defined as a 15 % increase
in electrical resistance from the initial resistance value, as
shown in Fig. 8. The failure criteria was determined considering
the loss of connection to the steering wheel-mounted system. Fig. 10. Relationship plot between stress (temperature) and lifetime (cy-
However, the electrical resistance response during the fatigue cles).
test significantly fluctuates between each cycle after crack
propagation because cracks open in the bending positions and failure data at 75 °C and 85 °C are shown in Fig. 9. The pa-
close in the flat positions. To prevent to underestimation, cycle- rameters estimated by maximum likelihood estimation (MLE)
to-failure was defined as the first cycle that were confirmed by are presented in Table 5. The parameters include the common
ten subsequent values of electrical resistance exceeding the shape parameter β of Weibull distribution at 75 °C and 85 °C,
failure criteria. the parameters of Arrhenius model. Fig. 10 shows the relation-
ship between temperature and lifetime described based on the
estimated parameters.
3.5 Accelerated life tests data analysis
The tests were conducted at 75 °C and 85 °C and cycle-to-
3.6 Estimation of lifetime under use conditions
failure data were obtained at each stress level. Weibull distribu-
tion and Arrhenius model were used as the life distribution and The use condition can be defined as the annual average
stress-lifetime model, respectively. Weibull probability plots of temperature of the region or country of interest, such as 25 °C,

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Table 6. Examples of the lifetime estimation results under different tem-
perature-based use conditions.
B10 lifetime ±95 % confidence interval
Temperature (°C)
(cycles) (cycles)
25 a a* ~ a’
30 b b* ~ b’
35 c c* ~ c’
Fig. 11. Weibull distribution of the lifetime (cycles) estimated at the use
condition level (e.g., 25 °C).
30 °C and 35 °C. The distributions of lifetime under various
temperature conditions were estimated by the obtained rela-
tionship between temperature and lifetime. The shape parame-
ter remained constant ( β = 7.7) and the scale parameters at
the specified temperatures were estimated using the parame-
ters in Table 5 and Eq. (2). For example, the Weibull distribu-
tion of lifetime at 25 °C was estimated as shown in Fig. 11.
Based on the estimated distributions, several life characteris-
tics such as B10 lifetime were estimated at various tempera-
ture-based use conditions such as 25 °C, 30 °C and 35 °C as
presented in Table 6. The actual values were replaced with
alphabets for security reasons of the data provider. The higher
the temperature, the smaller the estimated lifetime (a > b > c).
Furthermore, the estimated lifetime had a lower confidence
limit (a*, b*, c*) and an upper confidence limit (a’, b’, c’).
3.7 Validation of the life-stress relationship
To validate the obtained life-stress relationship, acceleration
factor (AF) was compared with the one from field failure data of
two countries (country A, country B) which have different an-
nual average temperature. The field failure data were collected
from the vehicles sold from April 2014 to March 2017 in country
A and from May 2014 to March 2017 in country B. The data
recorded failures of each module within 3 years. The Weibull
probability plots are shown in Fig. 12, and the shape parame-
ters (β) of the Weibull distributions are 1.67 for country A data
DOI 10.1007/s12206-022-0903-2
Fig. 12. Weibull probability plot of field failure data in two countries.
Fig. 13. Weibull probability plots of field data with a constant shape parame-
ter.
and 1.83 for country B data. Hypothesis testing was conducted
for verifying the assumption of a constant shape parameter of
two countries field data. P-value was 0.5482, so that the as-
sumption of a constant shape parameter was statistically vali-
dated. In addition, Fig. 13 shows the data points are located
within the 95 % confidence intervals except only a few points.
Consequently, AF for field data (AFfield) calculated as 1.2903.
AF was also calculated from the life-stress relationship. AF
due to changes in temperature is defined as Eq. (3) derived
from the Arrhenius model equation Eq. (2).
LA ⎛ E ⎛ 1 1 ⎞⎞
AF = = exp ⎜ a ⎜ − ⎟ ⎟
⎜ k T T ⎟
(3)
LB ⎝ ⎝ A B ⎠⎠
where TA is temperature of country A, TB is temperature of
country B and Ea is activation energy presented in Table 5.
The annual average temperature from 2014 to 2019 in coun-
try A and B is 13.03 °C and 15 °C, respectively. However,
country B had a large variation in the temperature by regions
compared to country A. Thus, in the case of country B, 95 %
upper mean and 95 % lower mean were used as an upper and
lower boundary for temperature. Table 7 summarized repre-
sentative value or boundary for temperature of each country.
The calculation results of AF were presented in Table 8. In
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 Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 36 (10) 2022
Table 7. Summary of representative values for temperature of country A
and B.
TA, mean TB, mean TB, 95 % lower mean TB, 95 % upper mean
13.03 15 13.12 16.87
Table 8. AFs considering temperature variation of regions in country B.
AFlower AF AFupper
1.0082 1.1449 1.2971
the tables, ‘AF’ denoted acceleration factor calculated with TA,
mean and TB, mean, ‘AFupper’ denoted one calculated with TA, mean
and TB, 95 % upper mean, and ‘AFlower’ denoted one calculated with TA,
mean and TB, 95 % lower mean. The results showed AF had a range
from 1.0082 to 1.2971. Thus, it was verified that the AF in field
data (1.2903) was located with the range.
4. Conclusions
In this research, a framework for failure mechanism-based
reliability assessment was developed based on failure analysis
and accelerated life tests (ALTs). The framework contains pro-
cedure for identification of failure mechanisms with failed field
samples and some considerations to perform ALTs. To de-
velop the framework, it was considered to utilize the engineer-
ing information such as warranty data and qualification test
results. In addition, an application was presented with SRC
modules as a case study. The failure mechanism was identified,
and ALTs were conducted at elevated temperatures. Life-
stress relationship was obtained and lifetime under various
temperature-based use conditions were estimated. The ob-
tained life-stress relationship was validated by comparing with
field failure data. The case study showed that the framework
enabled to quantitatively assess reliability based on the failure
mechanism.
Future works will involve further experimental validation with
different products and failures, and development of the frame-
work toward readily implementation of failure mechanism-
based reliability assessment for manufacturers.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a National Research Foun-
dation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government
(MSIT) (NRF-2020R1A4A4079904), and by Korea Electric
Power Corporation. (R21XO02-5)
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Moonsik Kang received the Bachelor’s
degree in Mechanical Engineering from
Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea.
He is currently studying a Master’s de-
gree in Industrial Engineering from Sung-
kyunkwan University, South Korea. His
research interests are focused on prog-
nostics and health management, reliabil-
ity engineering and design of accelerated life test based on
failure mechanism.
Daeil Kwon received the Bachelor’s
degree in Mechanical Engineering from
POSTECH, South Korea, and the Ph.D.
degree in Mechanical Engineering from
the University of Maryland, College Park,
MD, USA. He was a Senior Reliability
Engineer with Intel Corporation, Chan-
dler, AZ, USA, where he developed use
condition-based reliability models and methodologies for as-
sessing package and system reliability performance. He is
currently an Associate Professor with Sungkyunkwan Univer-
sity, Suwon, South Korea. His research interests are focused
on prognostics and health management of electronics, reliabil-
ity modeling, and use condition characterization.
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