Digital Electronics Health Prognosis

Electronic digital circuit boards are composites of organic or inorganic materials with external and internal wiring designed to electrically interconnect and mechanically support all of the components and dissipate heat. Digital electronic circuit failure is ultimately a material failure at either the board, interconnect or component level. VEXTEC proposes to extend JSF prognosis to digital electronics using a physics of failure and material microstructural modeling approach. This project will consider digital circuit failure due to lead-free solder fatigue, board delamination, and individual component failure. The proposed project will develop an innovative, diagnostic/prognostic life prediction methodology for JSF application using currently planned onboard sensed data as modeling input. Phase I will show concept feasibility through a remote input output (RIO) circuit board prognosis demonstration. This system represents an excellent example for the prognosis need given there are ten RIOs at various locations on the JSF aircraft. These ten RIO's represent a system of like components exposed to different environments within the aircraft. Also sensors are currently available to measure temperatures and vibration at each of the ten locations.