Environmental Stress Screening (ESS)

Environmental Stress Screening can be applied during the development phase, or throughout manufacturing to screen out defective assemblies. ESS is the process of applying stress to an assembly to decrease the time to failure and to evaluate product reliability.

A solid Failure Reporting And Corrective Action System (FRACAS) is essential when conducting ESS. A FRACAS will ensure that all failures identified during testing are drive to root cause and corrected to prevent re-occurrance.

Benefits of ESS

• Lower warranty costs through improved product design.
• Fewer product failures in the field leading to higher product confidence.
• Lower ongoing design support costs.
• Efficiency in screening out production defects and design faults.
• Indicator for weak points in a system.

Which Stress to Apply?

There are a wide range of stresses that can be applied during ESS. GMR Solutions offers all of the following stress types and we can work with your organization to ensure the chosen stresses result in an efficient test to meet your goals:

• Temperature and humidity Cycling.
• Altitude and humidity.
• Electrical stresses.
• Thermal Shock.
• Random Vibration.
• Flex, torsion, and pull tests.
• Radiation - solar, or electromagnetic.

ESS During Manufacturing

ESS is an effective tool for screening out latent defects during production. Either sub-assemblies, or complete systems can be tested depending upon the users requirement. Typically testing consists of the use of a test machine (chamber, shaker, or other), a fixture, and some functional test apparatus. Whilst it is preferred to be running functional testing during the ESS sometimes this is impossible due to the product configuration.

When to Perform ESS

ESS can be performed at any stage of a products life. It can be utilized in the design phase for improving the product design, or can be implemented in manufacturing as a thorough production screen to remove latent manufacturing defects.

Approximate Cost

The stresses applied, unit quantity, size, and complexity, along with the screen duration all play a role in the expenses associated with ESS.

Contact us for further pricing information, or for recommendations on ESS.