Estimating low-cycle fatigue life and calculating the probability of failure for the space electronic board under thermal cyclic loading

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Amirhosein Rahbar 1
Seyed Mohammad Navid Ghoreishi 2
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology (SUT), Tehran, Iran E-mail address
2 Satellite Research Institute, Iranian Space Research Center
10.22034/jssta.2025.486362.1213
Abstract
One of the most challenging issues in designing and manufacturing space electronic boards is the fatigue caused by thermal-mechanical stresses in solder joints. Thermal-mechanical fatigue occurs due to the stresses caused by frequent temperature changes and differences in the thermal and mechanical properties of different materials and can cause failure or degradation of the solder joints on the electronic board. Any degradation or failure in solder joints can cause the electronic board to lose its functionality, and therefore, this phenomenon should be fully considered in the design of electronic boards. In this paper, a six-layer electronic board with two hundred electronic components and BGA, Leaded, and LCCC packages has been investigated, and the estimation of its fatigue life and failure probability under the influence of space thermal profiles has been calculated both analytically and numerically. In the life estimation calculations, three types of solder materials, PB90SN10, SAC305, and SN100C, have been considered, and the life of the electronic board and the failure probability have been calculated for each of these materials. This paper uses a strain energy-based model for the numerical life estimation calculations. The main factors affecting fatigue in solder joints, including thermal profiles, part design, material properties, and printed circuit board (PCB) characteristics, have been fully investigated and their impact on the electronic board’s life has been studied. The results show that resistance to cracking and the distribution of mechanical stresses in different configurations significantly affect the system’s life. Numerical and statistical analyses performed with the two-variable Weibull model reveal the relationship between the thermal expansion coefficient, PCB layer structure, and mechanical resistance of solders. Finally, it is shown that SAC305 solder in the BGA configuration provides the best performance in terms of thermal cycle counts to failure, while LCCC is more sensitive to fatigue. The numerical results obtained in this paper were verified with analytical results, and it was observed that the numerical method used has a very high accuracy in estimating the fatigue life of electronic boards. These findings can facilitate the improvement of electronic board design in space applications.
Keywords
Life estimation
Fatigue
Probability of failure
Electronic board
Subjects
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Space Science, Technology and Applications
Volume 5, Issue 2
March 2026
Pages 34-53

  • Receive Date 31 October 2024
  • Revise Date 04 December 2024
  • Accept Date 06 May 2025