Engineers at Alliant Techsystems in Hopkins, Minn., needed to test boards in the Mk 46 torpedo for their susceptibility to vibration to determine reliability in some of the torpedo`s electronics upgrades. An experienced structural analyst typically required more than 40 hours per board
Yet they found that a software package from CirVibe Inc. of Plymouth, Minn., enabled a test engineer with no previous analytical experience to test a board in eight hours - and provided a more detailed analysis than they were able to conduct previously.
Alliant experts performed extensive testing on the circuit card to determine vibration requirements for rocket- and air-carry levels. This is an interesting circuit card because of its failure type, explains John Starr, president of CirVibe. The configuration is simple in shape and support conditions, but its results are not in agreement with the textbook methods commonly used for life predictions.
The industry has a name for failures for which no cause can be determined: "cannot duplicate failures." With the wrong tools, technicians might misclassify these failures as unknown failures. The CirVibe software addresses this problem by being a "purpose-built" package for analysis of life usage of electronics exposed to vibration. CirVibe experts developed a model for the circuit card from a drawing in less than an hour, Starr says. - J.R.
For more information on CirVibe`s software package for evaluating environmental stresses, contact John Starr by phone at 612-559-5166, by fax at 612-559-0489, by post at P.O Box 47394, Plymouth, Minn. 55447, by e-mail at [email protected], or on the World Wide Web at http:// www.cirvibe.com/.
Alliant Techsystems is using CirVibe software for vibration stress screen tests in Mk 46 torpedo electronics upgrades.
