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Electrical Equipment Performance Testing

WHA generally conducts electrical equipment performance testing to support electrical failure investigations. The testing is designed to evaluate the conditions required to recreate failures (i.e., reconstruction testing) or determine the conditions that electrical equipment can tolerate without failure. Testing can also be used to determine the severity of a failure and evaluate factors that intensify the severity. WHA has conducted the following types of performance testing:

Solder joint quality assessment (Fig. 1 and 2):
- Determination of the quality of solder joints and their tolerance to thermal cycles and contributing factors such as vibrations and humidity (Fig. 3)
IPC-A-610 Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies
- Identification of soldering anomalies such as cold-solder joints and fractured solder joints
- Conductor clearance assessment for traces on circuit boards

Thermal cycling and vibration tolerance of electrical connectors
Resistance of electrical connectors to fretting (Fig. 4)
Assessment of compromised case chassis and electronic enclosures in the event of a failure
- Determination of the ability of electrical equipment casing to safely contain failure events such as fires that initiate within the electrical equipment

Metallic Oxide Varistor (MOV) Testing
- Determination of the performance of the MOV and its tolerance to conditioning from voltage transients
- Determination of the conditions required for MOV failure, including high voltage events


Fig. 1 - Poor solder joint fillet combined with strain lead to solder cracking.	Fig. 2 - Careful potting and sectioning lead to the root cause of the solder joint cracking.

Fig. 3 - Identification of oxidation and corrosion byproducts accumulated on circuit board through SEM/EDS.	Fig. 4 - Corrosion build up on connector due to fretting leads to high resistance connection and thermal damage.