PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE - AN APPROACH TO RELIABLE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Reliability assessments based on physics-of-failure methods incorporat e reliability into the design process to prevent parts from failing in service. An understanding of the physics-of-failure is necessary in a pplications that afford little opportunity for testing, or for reliabi lity growth. This paper presents an overview of physics-of-failure and a case study of the application of physics-of-failure to a specific f ailure mechanism called conductive filament formation.