Degradation Testing of Thermoelectrics for HVAC Applications

In today's global environment, accelerated life testing is becoming a competitive advantage when time spent from the conceptual stage to the final product development needs to be minimized (project costs and development time) to be successful. Using accelerated life testing techniques for semiconductors and structural applications has substantial challenges when defining the loading and the thermos fatigue life to represent actual field performance. Such common problems and helpful strategies using accelerated life testing are presented for faster planning of accelerated life testing (ALT). Examples from the refrigeration industry are used to demonstrate the utility of this strategy. In conclusion, the test and analysis were effectively used to increase the degree of reliability improvements and to reduce the total number of test hours, resulting in a shorter design cycle.