Drop Test Simulation of Electronic Devices using Finite Element Method

All hand-held electronic devices are susceptible to being dropped during typical usage. As devices become smaller, but have more power/memory/features packed into them, there is a requirement for joints and interconnects to also become smaller, making them more vulnerable during drop. Other electronic devices may be dropped during manufacture, shipping, and installation. Therefore, drop reliability is of great concern to the electronics industry. Physical testing is still common, but it does not give the wealth of information available from finite element analysis. With finite element analysis, it is possible to extract results - stresses, strain, displacements, accelerations, and forces - at any time during the drop event and at any point in the structure, i.e., not just the instrumented points in a physical test. It is also possible to look inside an assembly in detail during the drop event, something that is not possible with physical test. This gives extremely valuable insight in to which components interact during the drop and what design changes may be needed to overcome unwanted contact. The submodeling method allows even more detailed results to be extracted from a relatively coarse system-level model and so can be used to better predict potential failures.