Rapid Life Testing
By: James Weber
Rapid Life Testing
Overview
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What is Rapid Life Testing?
Why Use Rapid Life Testing?
Types of Rapid Testing
IBM’s “Ultimate Testing
Sequence”
• Paper Clip Example
• Summary
What is Rapid Life
Testing?
• An accelerated testing
procedure that tests a product's
overall durability and
dependability
• Accelerate the time to a
product’s failure
• Helps in determining the
weakest points of a product
Why Use Rapid Life
Testing?
• Customers not only demand
quality, they expect it
• Making it, breaking it, and fixing
it in-house and before release
cuts product failure by 90% and
saves you time and money
Types of Rapid Life
Testing
• Qualitative Accelerated Life
Testing
– interested in identifying failures
and failure modes
• Quantitative Accelerated Life
Testing
– interested in predicting the life of
the product
Qualitative Accelerated
Life Testing
• The product is tested with a
single high level stress and has
two possible outcomes
– If the product passes the stress
level, then it will be subjected to
another stress level
– If the product fails, the product will
need to be redesigned to pass the
next time
Qualitative Accelerated
Life Testing Techniques
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•
•
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Elephant Tests
Torture Tests
HALT Tests
Shake and Bake Tests
Quantitative
Accelerated Life Testing
• “Time-to-Failure” testing
– How long it takes before a product
begins to fail
• The goal is to understand,
measure, and predict any failure
that may occur
Quantitative Accelerated
Life Testing Techniques
• Usage Rate Acceleration
– Over-using a product
• Overstress Acceleration
– Adding stresses to constantly
running product
• Stresses and Stress Levels
Who uses Rapid Life
Testing?
• IBM
– Mission to produce laptops that
withstand whatever a customer
may put it through
– Uses Rapid Life Testing to
accomplish this goal
– IBM leads the industry in quality
and product design excellence
IBM’s “Ultimate Testing
Sequence”
• Shake and Bake Sequence
• Bake Test
– operating the laptop in a 120
degrees F oven 24 hours a day for
several weeks
• “Earthquake” Test
– Laptop attached both horizontally
and vertically to a 2-ton block of
granite which violently shakes
IBM’s “Ultimate Testing
Sequence”
• Torque Test
– A robot will put 50 to 100 pounds of
pressure down on one key and then
release it.
• Crash Test
– Another robot gently and precisely picks
up a computer, places it carefully on a
sled and then whips it to the end where
it crashes to the floor
IBM’s “Ultimate Testing
Sequence”
• Travel Test
– Manufacturers want to be sure the
products can withstand the long
haul over bumpy roads and through
clumsy fingers on their journey to
stores across the country
• How IBM does it
– IBM first checks the packaging for
the laptop
IBM’s “Ultimate Testing
Sequence”
• Laptops are shot along a rail, roller
coaster-style, before slamming into
an unforgiving steel barrier at the
end of the test track
• They're also dropped on every side,
corner and seam at heights
approximating those of a person's
outstretched arms
IBM Rapid Life Testing
Summary
• Rapid Life Testing cuts IBM’s
costs
• IBM allows the defects to be
found in-house rather than by
the customer
• IBM leads the industry in quality
and product design excellence
Paper Clip Example
• To illustrate accelerated life
testing, let’s take a look at the
simple example of bending a
paper until it breaks keeping
track of the amount of bends
applied
• Let us begin
Open The Paperclip
• With one hand, hold
the clip by the
longer, outer loop
• With the thumb and
forefinger of the
other hand, grasp
the smaller, inner
loop
• Pull the smaller,
inner loop out and
down 90 degrees
so that a right
angle is formed as
shown
Close The Paperclip
• With one hand,
continue to hold the
clip by the longer, outer
loop.
• With the thumb and
forefinger of the other
hand, grasp the
smaller, inner loop.
• Push the smaller inner
loop up and in 90
degrees so that the
smaller loop is returned
to the original upright
position in line with the
larger, outer loop as
shown
Count and Record Data
• This counts as one cycle
• Continue the cycles until the
paperclip breaks
• Count and record the cycles-tofailure for each clip
Summary
• Customers demand Quality
• Products need to be thoroughly
tested to determine weak points
• Rapid Life Testing can locate these
weak points quickly
• Bottom Line: Rapid Life Testing leads
to higher quality, less product
failures and more revenue
Reading List
• Information for this presentation
were from a variety of Online
Resources:
• http://www.weibull.com/AccelTe
stWeb/acceltestweb.htm
• http://www.advancedinput.com/AIDpdfDownloads/HAL
T-HASS.pdf
Reading List cont.
• http://www.amsaa.army.mil/rad/a
lt/alt2.htm
• http://www.advancedinput.com/AIDpdfDownloads/HAL
T-HASS.pdf
• http://www.waketech.edu/math/n
sfgrant/2001Buehler/Buehler_ht
m/ProfileBrianSmith.html
Reading List cont.
• http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/think/
quality.html
• http://www.popularmechanics.co
m/technology/computers/1997/8/
Torture_Testing/index2.phtml