Mechanical fatigue of an electronic component under random vibration

Electronic equipment, which is widely used in military applications, must be able to survive harsh environments. The endurance of such equipment is defined by the durability of their internal sensitive components. In this study, vibration induced fatigue life analysis of an axial leaded aluminium capacitor is performed. Three point bending tests are performed for the composite FR‐4 printed circuit boards (PCBs) material in order to determine bending modulus. Experimental modal analysis is used to validate a simulation model of the PCB. Step stress tests (SSTs) of reinforced and unreinforced capacitors which are mounted on the test PCBs are performed. It is found that the failure locations on the test PCBs are compatible among themselves and all the failures are due to flexure stress developed at the lead wires and solder joints. Numerical fatigue analyses are performed to define failure in terms of damage index. In addition, the Weibull model is used to define mean time to failure (MTTF) values. The comparison between MTTF values shows that the fatigue lives are strongly increased by the eccobond reinforcement. The last stage in this work is to focus on the influence of some design parameters on the fatigue life. An exponential equation is proposed to find the relation between lead‐wire diameter and the fatigue damage. It is shown that fatigue damage becomes a maximum for a square shaped PCB and it appears that component body diameter is more effective than the body length in increasing fatigue life.