NAFEMS Americas and Digital Engineering (DE) teamed up (once again) to present CAASE, the (now Virtual) Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering, on June 16-18, 2020!

CAASE20 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, unlike any other, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues, including:
-What is the future for engineering analysis and simulation?
-Where will it lead us in the next decade?
-How can designers and engineers realize its full potential?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will take past successful developments to new levels in the next ten years?

Resource Abstract

Understanding the failure behavior of printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) that are exposed to different environments can help inform key design aspects, like optimized location within an assembly, board housing geometry, and expected maintenance schedule. This presentation outlines a design analysis methodology using reliability physics and finite element analysis that provides fast and accurate life predictions for electronic hardware at the component, board, and system levels in early design stages.

The failure behavior is predicated on the strain magnitudes created from various environmental loading conditions, and how different electronic packages/materials handle different levels of strain. The design simulation workflows presented here employ structural simulations to determine time varying stress strain data. These structural loading simulations may include scenarios such as random vibration or impact loading. Additionally, a PCBA may see temperature loading from the internal heat dissipation from electronics that is affected by the surrounding airflow. A coupled heat transfer and computational fluid dynamic simulation is employed to compute the resulting thermal profile for the assembly. The strain and thermal history from the structural and conjugate CFD simulation is the input for a reliability physics analysis that predicts the reliability of the PCBA over time.

The proposed methodology is illustrated with an example application for a PCBA placed on the rooftop of an autonomous vehicle. The fatigue life is determined for common automotive mechanical loads, such as those from driving on potholes, random vibrations associated with everyday driving, and door slamming. The thermal effects from component heating during power cycling and convective airflow during vehicle motion are included. Utilizing a simulation-based reliability physics analysis early in the design phase allows engineers to better understand how reliability changes with duty cycle. It makes possible the rapid identification and mitigation of certain failure risks with an overall goal of ensuring passenger safety, meeting warranty targets, and reducing physical test times.