11/3/22, 10:18 PM Constant Temperature Accelerated Life Testing using the Arrhenius Relationship - Delserro Engineering Solutions

Constant Temperature Accelerated

Life Testing using the Arrhenius
Relationship
When products are mainly exposed to temperature stresses in the field, Constant
Temperature Accelerated Life Testing is used to simulate product life. Products can
be tested at temperatures above their normal use temperature during Constant
Temperature Accelerated Life Testing in order to accelerate aging. Defects or
failure modes that would show up after many years in the field at normal use
temperatures can be detected in short times in an Accelerated Life Test. In
Constant Temperature Accelerated Life Testing, the typical failure mode is
dependent on migration/diffusion or chemical reactions. These types of failures are
typically found in electronic components but can also occur in other types of
products or materials such as adhesives, batteries, etc. The Arrhenius Equation
relates reaction rates to temperature and is used to correlate time in the field at
normal use temperature to a Constant Temperature Accelerated Life Test. It should
be noted that constant temperature testing will not precipitate failure modes due to
thermal cycling. Temperature or thermal cycle testing will be discussed in another
blog article.

The Arrhenius Equation that relates reaction rates to temperature is:

 
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11/3/22, 10:18 PM Constant Temperature Accelerated Life Testing using the Arrhenius Relationship - Delserro Engineering Solutions

The Acceleration Factor (AF) can be obtained by the ratio of the reaction rates at
two different temperatures and is given by the following equation:

As an example, consider a product with a normal operating temperature of 50 °C.

Testing the product at 100 °C will result in the following acceleration factor,
assuming an activation energy of 0.7 eV:

Testing the product for 1,000 hours (≈ 6 weeks) at 100 °C is therefore equivalent to
29,000 hours or 3.3 years of life at the normal operating temperature of 50 °C.
Increasing the test temperature will increase the acceleration. For example, if the
same sample could be tested at 130 °C, the acceleration factor (AF) would
increase to 146 so that the same 1,000 hours of testing would now be equivalent to
16.7 years of life at the normal use temperature. However, care must be taken
such that the test temperature is not higher than what the product can withstand.
Using too high of a test temperature may result in unrealistic failures that would not
occur during normal product operating temperatures. It is therefore always
important to evaluate failures obtained during accelerated temperature testing to
determine if they are the same type of failure that would be expected to occur at
normal operating temperatures.

Using the correct value for the activation energy is also important as a small
change in the activation energy will have an effect on the acceleration factor.
Activation energy values for various processes have been reported and can be
found in the literature or the Internet. It is also possible to experimentally determine

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11/3/22, 10:18 PM Constant Temperature Accelerated Life Testing using the Arrhenius Relationship - Delserro Engineering Solutions

the activation energy by performing tests at multiple temperatures and plotting the
results.

What sets Delserro Engineering Solutions, Inc. (DES) apart from other labs is our
knowledge on how to relate test time to time in the field. So if you do not know
what test conditions that you should use, what specification to choose, or how to
correlate your test to field life, then we will help you because we are reliability
testing experts!

 August 12, 2013  DES Accelerated Life Testing  accelerated life testing, constant
temperature accelerated life testing

6 thoughts on “Constant Temperature

Accelerated Life Testing using the
Arrhenius Relationship”
kishore says:
June 17, 2014 at 2:02 am
Thanks for your information. I was very usfull.

How can i get Ea value for copper and polyimide

materials?

Is Ea value will change based on my T2 temperature for same material?

Reply
DES says:
June 18, 2014 at 5:47 pm
Typically we assume Ea to be constant. It is not easy to find values for Ea.
We typically do a Google Search. Thanks for the reply.

Reply
yk says:
December 18, 2014 at 9:39 am
Can I use Arrhenius Relationship to determine Accelerated factor, Af
when test temperature is lower than use temperature?

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11/3/22, 10:18 PM Constant Temperature Accelerated Life Testing using the Arrhenius Relationship - Delserro Engineering Solutions

Reply
AK says:
April 6, 2016 at 12:27 pm
The objective of HALT is to accelerate the life of a product and therefore
you test the product at extreme test values. So one should have the test
temperatures much greater than normal values.

Reply
DES says:
April 6, 2016 at 1:56 pm
You are correct.

Reply
Svebor Tomasović says:
October 3, 2016 at 7:36 am
In case I make 30-day burn-in test of may DUT (communication
converters) on the temperature of 80°C and 30-day temp. cycling test from -20°C
to 80°C (temp. change rate is relatively slow – 3°C/min) do I then need to derive
some average acceleration factor (like mean value between acceleration factor for
bur-in and acceleration factor for temperature cycling?

Reply
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