Track 2 Session 13
2:20 to 3:20 p.m. Thursday June 19, 2008

HALT Methodology Applied for Automotive Components

The Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) methodology consists of testing products in more critical conditions than the normal ones. The objective is to speed up and precipitate failures in order to determine the main weak points of the product. The methodology has been applied to automotive vehicle component endurance tests, aiming to reduce test duration and therefore reduce the necessary time for new concept development. Although the HALT objective is to lead the product to any failure that may occur, in the work discussed in this presentation, the intention is to avoid introducing ways of failure that do not correspond to the experience in the field. To evaluate the results we used variance analysis, structural analysis of the samples (after each test) and, finally, Weibull analysis. The objective was to reproduce field failures as closely as possible and the effort was successful.