Failure Analysis of Electrical and Electronic Products and Components

Examples of problems in different markets
Aerospace
A series of small smoke incidents in the cabin
of an aircraft lead to a large scale review.
Cobham Technical Services identified the
immediate cause to be associated with the
method of assembly of the electronics and
recommended changing the position of the
critical components on the board.
Transport
Problems had occurred with monitoring the
position of doors on an underground train.
Cobham Technical Services found that a
suspect component had inadequate
internal soldering.
www.cobham.com/technicalservices
ERA Technology Limited trading as Cobham Technical Services
Domestic
Several heating systems failed with emissions
of fumes. The root cause was located by
analysis at Cobham Technical Services in
some poor quality capacitors.
Industrial
An extensive set of accelerated life tests
generated a number of failures in high power
control systems. Some of these were analysed
at Cobham Technical Services to be caused
by an inadequate cleaning process.
Cobham Technical Services
Cobham Technical Services works at the
leading-edge of innovation by undertaking
advanced design and development,
producing high-performance custom
components and sub-systems, delivering
specialist technical consultancy services and by
providing state-of-the-art electromagnetic
and power system modelling software
products.
Expert technical teams have extensive
embedded programme management
experience, which ensures efficient project
planning, resource time management and
on-time delivery.
These capabilities provide customers with
high added-value and enhanced competitive
advantage through reduced technical and
commercial risk, faster time-to-market and
improved performance of products, systems
and engineering infrastructure assets.
Industry-leading technology is delivered
to government departments and global
companies across market sectors as diverse
as communications, aerospace, defence,
transport, electronics, medical and energy.
Cobham Technical Services is based
across four sites located in Leatherhead,
UK (ERA Technology), Abingdon, UK
(Lightning Testing and Consultancy),
Kidlington, UK (Vector Fields Software)
and Aurora, USA (Vector Fields Software).
For further information please contact:
Cobham Technical Services
ERA Technology
Cleeve Road,
Leatherhead,
FM1303
Surrey KT22 7SA UK
REF: RFA25
Tel: +44 (0)1372 367444
Fax: +44 (0)1372 367134
Email: era.info@cobham.com
Web: www.cobham.com/technicalservices