Thermodynamic Degradation Science

Physics of Failure, Accelerated Testing, Fatigue, and Reliability Applications

Alec Feinberg

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781119276227
• eBook ISBN: 9781119276272
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Quality Control in Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Thermodynamic degradation science is a new and exciting discipline. This book merges the science of physics of failure with thermodynamics and shows how degradation modeling is improved and enhanced when using thermodynamic principles. The author also goes beyond the traditional physics of failure methods and highlights the importance of having new tools such as "Mesoscopic" noise degradation measurements for prognostics of complex systems, and a conjugate work approach to solving physics of failure problems with accelerated testing applications. Key features: • Demonstrates how the thermodynamics energy approach uncovers key degradation models and their application to accelerated testing. • Demonstrates how thermodynamic degradation models accounts for cumulative stress environments, effect statistical reliability distributions, and are key for reliability test planning. • Provides coverage of the four types of Physics of Failure processes describing aging: Thermal Activation Processes, Forced Aging, Diffusion, and complex combinations of these. • Coverage of numerous key topics including: aging laws; Cumulative Accelerated Stress Test (CAST) Plans; cumulative entropy fatigue damage; reliability statistics and environmental degradation and pollution. Thermodynamic Degradation Science: Physics of Failure, Accelerated Testing, Fatigue and Reliability Applications is essential reading for reliability, cumulative fatigue, and physics of failure engineers as well as students on courses which include thermodynamic engineering and/or physics of failure coverage.

1
Equilibrium Thermodynamic Degradation Science

1.1 Introduction to a New Science

Thermodynamic degradation science is a new and exciting discipline. Reviewing the literature, one might note that thermodynamics is underutilized for this area. You may wonder why we need another approach. The answer is: in many cases you do not. However, the depth and pace of understanding physics of failure phenomenon, and the simplified methods it offers for such problems, is greatly improved because thermodynamics offers an energy approach. Further, systems are sometimes complex and made up of many components. How do we describe the aging of a complex system? Here is another possibility where thermodynamics, an energy approach, can be invaluable. We will also see that assessing thermodynamic degradation can be very helpful in quantifying the life of different devices, their aging laws, understanding of their failure mechanisms and help in reliability accelerated test planning [1–4]. One can envision that degradation is associated with some sort of device damage that has occurred. In terms of thermodynamics, degradation is about order versus disorder in the system of interest. Therefore, often we will use the term thermodynamic damage which is associated with disorder and degradation. One clear advantage to this method is that:

thermodynamics is an energy approach, often making it easier to track damage due to disorder and the physics of failure of aging processes.

More importantly, thermodynamics is a natural candidate to use for understanding system aging.

Here the term “system” can be a device, a complex assembly, a component, or an area of interest set apart for study.

Although most people who study thermodynamics are familiar with its second law, not many think of it as a good explanation of why a system degrades over time. We can manipulate a phrasing of the second law of thermodynamics to clarify our point [1, 4].

Second law in terms of system thermodynamic damage: the spontaneous irreversible damage processes that take place in a system interacting with its environment will do so in order to go towards thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment.

There are many phrasings of the second law. This phrasing describes aging, and we use it in this chapter as the second law in terms of thermodynamics damage occurring in systems as they age. We provide some examples in Chapter 2 (see Sections 2.10 and 2.11) of this statement in regards to aging to help clarify this.

When we state that degradation is irreversible, we mean either non-repairable damage or that we cannot reverse the degradation without at the same time employing some new energetic process to do so. We see there is a strong parallel consequence of the second law of thermodynamics associated with spontaneous degradation processes.

The science presents us with a gift, for its second law actually explains the aging processes [1, 4].

We are therefore compelled to look towards this science to help us in our study of system degradation. Currently the field of physics of failure includes a lot of thermodynamic-type explanations. Currently however, the application of thermodynamics to the field of device degradation is not fully mature. Its first and second laws can be difficult to apply to complex aging problems. However, we anticipate that a thermodynamic approach to aging will be invaluable and provide new and useful...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Author
• Preface
• 1 Equilibrium Thermodynamic Degradation Science
• 2 Applications of Equilibrium Thermodynamic Degradation to Complex and Simple Systems: Entropy Damage, Vibration, Temperature, Noise Analysis, and Thermodynamic Potentials
• 3 NE Thermodynamic Degradation Science Assessment Using the Work Concept
• 4 Applications of NE Thermodynamic Degradation Science to Mechanical Systems
• 5 Corrosion Applications in NE Thermodynamic Degradation
• 6 Thermal Activation Free Energy Approach
• 7 TAT Model Applications: Wear, Creep, and Transistor Aging
• 8 Diffusion
• 9 How Aging Laws Influence Parametric and Catastrophic Reliability Distributions
• 10 The Theory of Organization
• Special Topics A
• Special Topics B
• Special Topics C
• Overview of New Terms, Equations, and Concepts
• Index
• End User License Agreement