Computer simulation and design of a solder joint vibration test machine

Vibration is commonly encountered during the life time of electronic components. It is a major cause of failure due to cyclic strain and stress that give rise to damage in the materials making up the component. The recent move from lead to lead-free soldering by the electronics industry has necessitated the generation of material properties data that will allow accurate prediction of the lead-free solder's performance under vibration conditions. To assess the reliability of lead-free solders under vibration loading, test equipment has been designed for small solder joints using a piezoelectric cell as the vibration source. This equipment will also be used to produce results that can be used to extract solder mechanical material properties and fatigue lifetime parameters suitable for numerical simulations and prediction of solder joint lifetime under vibration loading. This paper focuses on the analysis of the structure of the proposed vibration test equipment using Finite Element analysis method. Modal analysis as well as transient analysis has been undertaken to help understand the equipment response in vibration tests. A number of design variables and loading conditions have been analysed in this work.