METHOD FOR PREDICTING THE DURABILITY OF ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT

Abstract

Context. Constant growth of spacecraft operating life requirements leads to creating equipment which fits these requirements.
From this point of view, specifically durability prediction allows to evaluate the potential of creating equipment with a long operating
life. On early stages of equipment’s development analytical methods of durability prediction are used. Obviously, the more precise
the estimation is, the more likely that the practical test will confirm the durability predictions. Therefore, improving the engineering
techniques of the durability prediction is a relevant problem.
Objective. The objective of this research is to improve the quality of design work by enhancing the engineering techniques of the
durability prediction, which raise the authenticity of the evaluations.
Method. Life of the equipment are calculated using the statistical modelling method (Monte-Carlo method). This method takes
into consideration probabilistic characteristics of constituent elements’ life.
Results. As a result, the problem of predicting operating life of electronic equipment using the reference data on early stages of
development is solved. An analysis of standardized method of durability prediction was performed which revealed existing limitations
for using this method when predicting operating life of electronic equipment. An alternate, statistical method of predicting operating
life of electronic equipment was suggested and a software implementation was created. Developed software was tested and
verified. Analytical experiments were performed to show the authenticity of the suggested method and to compare it to the standardized
one.
Conclusions. Thus, results of the performed research show that the standardized method is applicable only for calculating the
minimum operating time. Also, it was concluded that the truncation parameter of element’s life distribution, variation coefficient of
life and some specific qualities of dependability prediction scheme have to be taken into consideration when predicting durability of
electronic equipment.