Method and device for predicting a life expectancy of a product containing a plurality of components

A method for predicting a life expectancy of a product, having at least two components, as a function of a predefined loading of the product, comprising:

• acting upon the components of the product by different loadings;
• operating each component at the different loadings until failure;
• storing obtained failure times for each component as a function of each of the loadings;
• recording a corresponding end-of-life (EOL) curve of each component as a function of the load-dependent failure times of the component;
• ascertaining an EOL curve of the product, so that at each of the different loadings, it includes the EOL curve of a component which has a shortest failure time at the corresponding loading;
• and
• determining an anticipated service life of the product as a functional value of the EOL curve of the product as a function of the predefined loading of the product;
• wherein the components of the product are loaded by at least one of (a) a specific, absolute operating temperature and (b) a temperature fluctuation of a particular amplitude within a specific period of time, and
• wherein within the scope of a thermal loading of the product, an accelerated reliability verification is conducted at a specific temperature above a specifiable field loading, for a specific period of time less than a duration of a field loading;
• the specific temperature and the specific period of time being adjusted to one another such that a mechanical loading of the product and a thermomechanical loading of the product are accelerated by approximately the same factor.

A device for predicting a life expectancy of a product, that includes at least two components, as a function of a predefined loading of the product, comprising:

• a device configured to retrieve stored end-of-life (EOL) curves of at least two of the components of the product, the EOL curves having been recorded beforehand as a function of ascertained, load-dependent failure times of the components;
• a device configured to ascertain an EOL curve of the product, so that at different loadings, it includes the EOL curve of a component which has a shortest failure time at the corresponding loading;
• and
• a device configured to determine an anticipated service life of the product as a functional value of the EOL curve of the product as a function of the predefined loading of the product;
• wherein the components of the product are loaded by at least one of (a) a specific, absolute operating temperature and (b) a temperature fluctuation of a particular amplitude within a specific period of time, and
• wherein the different loadings are in a number of loading classes, and for each loading class a distance of a duration of a predefined loading of a component to a corresponding value on the EOL curve of the component is determined and summed up according to Palmgren-Miner.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium for storing a computer program having a plurality of program codes for implementing, when the program codes are executed on a computer, a method for predicting a life expectancy of a product, having at least two components, as a function of a predefined loading of the product, the method including:

• acting upon the components of the product by different loadings;
• operating each component at the different loadings until failure;
• storing obtained failure times for each component as a function of each of the loadings;
• recording a corresponding end-of-life (EOL) curve of each component as a function of the load-dependent failure times of the component;
• ascertaining an EOL curve of the product, so that at each of the different loadings, it includes the EOL curve of a component which has a shortest failure time at the corresponding loading;
• and
• determining an anticipated service life of the product as a functional value of the EOL curve of the product as a function of the predefined loading of the product;
• wherein the components of the product are loaded by at least one of (a) a specific, absolute operating temperature and (b) a temperature fluctuation of a particular amplitude within a specific period of time, and
• wherein the different loadings are in a number of loading classes, and for each loading class a distance of a duration of a predefined loading of a component to a corresponding value on the EOL curve of the component is determined and summed up according to Palmgren-Miner.

A method for predicting a life expectancy of a product, having at least two components, as a function of a predefined loading of the product, comprising:

• acting upon the components of the product by different loadings;
• operating each component at the different loadings until failure;
• storing obtained failure times for each component as a function of each of the loadings;
• recording a corresponding end-of-life (EOL) curve of each component as a function of the load-dependent failure times of the component;
• ascertaining an EOL curve of the product, so that at each of the different loadings, it includes the EOL curve of a component which has a shortest failure time at the corresponding loading;
• and
• determining an anticipated service life of the product as a functional value of the EOL curve of the product as a function of the predefined loading of the product;
• wherein the method is used for producing a reliability verification for the product by checking if the EOL curve of the product is above a specifiable loading for a specifiable period of time, and if this is so, the reliability verification for the product is considered to be produced, wherein the components of the product are loaded by at least one of (a) a specific, absolute operating temperature and (b) a temperature fluctuation of a particular amplitude within a specific period of time, wherein the different loadings are in a number of loading classes, and for each loading class a distance of a duration of a predefined loading of a component to a corresponding value on the EOL curve of the component is determined and summed up according to Palmgren-Miner.