Citation

Jensen F. Reliab. Eng. 1982; 3(1): 13-22.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1982, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0143-8174(82)90019-1

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper describes the results of several burn-in experiments carried out within the Danish industry. The systems considered range from printed circuit boards to complex electronic equipment containing 4000 components.

The experiments were conducted in an effort to find a consistent pattern of early failures, which could be used to plan economical burn-in procedures. The failure patterns were recorded on Weibull paper, for ease of analysis.

Most of the systems showed a very strong early failure pattern, indicating a subpopulation of 'weak' systems. Using the concept of bimodal distributions of the lifetimes of the 'rogue' components within the systems, it is possible, in some cases, to compute the early failure pattern of the systems. This technique is briefly described in this paper.

Finally, the economic consequences of performing equipment or system burn-in are discussed and an optimal burn-in policy is considered.