Modeling

Vibration and
Shock
Nathan Blattau, Ph.D.

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 o Nathan Blattau, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President of DfR Solutions, has been involved in the
packaging and reliability of electronic equipment for more than ten
years. His specialties include best practices in design for reliability,
robustness of Pb-free, failure analysis, accelerated test plan
development, finite element analysis, solder joint reliability,
fracture, and fatigue mechanics of materials.

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Vibration Fatigue

o Vibration fatigue is due to mechanical stress induced

by vibration
o Millions of cycles to failure
o Small changes in stress have large impacts on time to
failure
o According to U.S Air-Force statistics 20 percent of all
failures observed in electronic equipment are due to
vibration problems
Steinberg D.S. Vibration analysis for
electronic equipment.
John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Vibration Fatigue
o Failures under vibration could be Fatigue of Structures and Materials,
J. Schijve, Springer, 2001
o Low cycle fatigue (LCF)
o High cycle fatigue (HCF)
o LCF is driven by inelastic strain
(Coffin-Manson)
o This is not typical of field environments
o Failures would occur in seconds to minutes due to
the cyclic rate experienced during vibration
o Vibration Fatigue is typically considered to be
high cycle fatigue
o Failures above 100,000 cycles
Elastic deformation behavior σf
o

o Predictions are usually done using the Basquin εe = (2 N ) f

b

equation
E
-0.05 < b < -0.12; 8 < -1/b < 20

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Vibration Fatigue – Failure Sites
o Failure sites may occur in
the lead or solder (or even
PCB traces)
o Usually in the bulk
materials
o Failures occurring at other
locations, typically indicate
a much higher stress Solder fracture Lead fracture
application (such as shock)
o Intermetallic fracture
o Laminate cracking
o Component body

SAC SMT 2512 fatigue crack

SnPb SMT 2512 fatigue crack

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Vibration fatigue

o Presence of
preexisting cracks Shrinkage Crack
Well defined
can provide and crack path
initiation site

Shrinkage crack provided

initiation site

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Modeling Vibration - Loads

o Single frequency o Random vibration is a continuous

spectrum of frequencies

MIL-STD-810G
AN INTRODUCTION TO RANDOM VIBRATION – Tom Irvine

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Modeling Vibration - Loads
Harmonic

Steinberg D.S. Vibration analysis

for electronic equipment.
John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

Random

MIL-STD-810G Figure 514.6C-1

US Highway truck vibration
exposure

1 hour is equivalent to 1000 miles

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Modeling Vibration - Loads

o Exposure to vibration loads can result in highly variable

results
o Vibration loads can vary by orders of magnitude (e.g., 0.001 g2/Hz
to 1 g2/Hz)
o Time to failure is very sensitive to vibration loads (tf ∝ W4)
o Very broad range of vibration environments
o MIL-STD-810 lists 3 manufacturing categories, 8 transportation
categories, 12 operational categories, and 2 supplemental
categories

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Vibration Modeling - Steinberg
o The board displacement during vibration is modeled as a single degree of freedom
system (spring, mass) using an estimate (or measured) of the natural frequency
(Steinberg).
Calculation
9.8×3 π ⋅ PSD⋅ f ⋅ Q
o
of maximum
deflection (Z0)
Z0 = 2 n
2
o
2
PSD is the power spectral density (g /Hz) fn Random
o fn is the natural frequency of the CCA
o Gin is the acceleration in g
o Q is transmissibility
(assumed to be square root of natural frequency)

9.8×Gin ×Q Harmonic
Z0 =
Steinberg D.S. Vibration analysis for electronic equipment.
John Wiley & Sons, 2000.
fn2

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Vibration Modeling – Steinberg

o Calculate critical displacement, this is the displacement

value at which the component can survive 10 to 20
million cycles (harmonic, random)
o B is length of PCB parallel to component
o c is a component packaging constant
o 1 to 2.25 0 . 00022 B
o h is PCB thickness Zc =
o r is a relative position factor chr L
o 1.0 when component at center of PCB
o L is component length

Steinberg D.S. Vibration analysis for electronic equipment.

John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Vibration Prediction - Steinberg
o Life calculation
Nc is 10 or 20 million cycles 6.4
o
 Zc 
N 0 = N c  
o Several assumptions  Z0 
o CCA is simply supported on all four edges
o More realistic support conditions, such as standoffs or wedge locks, can
result in a lower or higher displacements
o Chassis natural frequency differs from the CCA natural frequency by
at least factor of two (octave)
o Prevents coupling
o Does not consider printed circuit board bending (components can
have zero deflection but still be subjected to large amounts of
bending)

Steinberg D.S. Vibration analysis for electronic equipment.

John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 FEA Based Vibration Predictions

o Finite Element Analysis can be used to capture more

complex geometries, loadings and boundary conditions
o

Sherlock 3.0

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 FEA Based Vibration Predictions
Mezzanine and Daughter cards

Sherlock 3.0
Sherlock 3.0

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 FEA Modeling Loads

o Loading can be applied to the model

directly from the specification
o Vibration is applied to the structure
through the standoffs/mount points

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 FEA Vibration Simulation

o Determining the response of the structure to a vibration load is commonly done

using a Modal Dynamic Analysis
o It is necessary to do a modal analysis before conducting this analysis
o Determines the eigenvalues and eigenmodes (natural frequencies)
o Calculates the stiffness and mass matrices

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Sherlock - FEA Failure Prediction
o During vibration the board strain is proportional to the solder or lead strains and
therefore can be used to make time to failure predictions
This requires converting the cycles to failure displacement equations (Steinberg) ζ
ε =
o
to use strain
c
o

o
The strain for the components is now pulled from the FEA results
The critical strain for the package types is a function of package style,
c L
size, lead geometry
ζ is analogous to 0.00022B but modified
for strain
c is a component packaging function
L is component length
n
 εc 
N 0 = N c  
 ε0 

Sherlock 3.0

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Sherlock - FEA Failure Prediction
o Example, vibration test coupon
o SMC (DO-214AB) diodes
o 0.062” FR-4, 7” x 3.5” pcb with four corner standoffs
o Harmonic vibration
single frequency
90 mil peak to peak displacement

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Sherlock - FEA Failure Prediction

o Time to failure

3000

2500
Time to Failure (minutes)

2000

1500
Predicted
1000 Experimental

500

0
D33 D3 D4 D8 D2
Reference Designator

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Sherlock - FEA Modifications
o Vibration test coupon
o SMC (DO-214AB) diodes
o 0.062” FR-4, 7” x 3.5” pcb modified with an additional standoffs
o Harmonic vibration
single frequency
Same loads that generated
90 mil peak to peak displacement

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Sherlock - FEA Modifications
o Vibration test coupon
o SMC (DO-214AB) diodes
o Displacement reduced from 1.1 mm peak (90 mils peak to peak) to
0.029 mm peak (2.3 mils p to p)
o Failures no longer occur

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Mechanical Shock

o Initially driven by experiences

during shipping and
transportation
o Increasing importance with use
of portable electronic devices
o A surprising concern for
portable medical devices
o Floor transitions (1 to 5 inch
‘drop’)
o Environmental definitions
o Height or G levels
o Surface (e.g., concrete)
o Orientation (corner or face; all
orientations or worst-case)
o Number of drops

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Mechanical Shock (JEDEC)

JESD22-B110A, Subassembly Mechanical Shock

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Mechanical Shock Failures

o Failures related to mechanical

shock typically cause:
o Pad cratering (A,G)
o Intermetallic fracture (B, F)
o This is an overstress failure (not
fatigue)
o Random failure distribution

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Shock Prediction
o Sherlock implements Shock based upon a critical board level
strain (similar to vibration)
o Either the design is robust with regards to the expected shock
environment or it is not
o Additional work being initiated to investigate corner staking
patterns and material influences
Shock Life
600

550
-0.39
y = 1998.8x
500 -0.23
y = 833.05x
Adjusted G Level

450

400

350

300
Staked
Unstaked
250 Power (Staked)
Power (Unstaked)
200
1 10 100 1000
Drops to Failure

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Shock Simulations

o There are techniques that use simple spring mass

approximation to predict the board deflection during
a shock event
o FEA simulations are usually transient dynamic
o Sherlock utilizes an implicit transient dynamic simulation
o Shock pulse is transmitted through the mounting points into the
board
o The resulting board strains are extracted from the FEA
results and used to predict robustness under shock
conditions

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 CPU Card with DC/DC Converter
o 50G shock pulse
o Results in 12 mm
deflection (severe)

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Shock Failure Predictions

o Excessive bending strains

Sherlock scoring on deformed plot

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Model Modification Shock

o Two additional mounting points added mid-span

o Deflection drops from 12 mm to 1.65 mm

Still some component failures

more support is needed

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Model Modification Shock

o Board mounted to a chassis plate

Presence of chassis reduces

board bending

© 2004 - 2010
2007
 Conclusions
o Finite element based solutions to shock and vibration
issues are necessary to adequately capture the
complex mounting configurations and response of
circuit card assemblies
o Displacement only techniques may miss critical board
bending issues associated with shock and vibration

© 2004 - 2010
2007
Thank You!