Peter Sakalaukus

Reliability and Failure Modes of Solid-State Lighting Electrical Drivers Subjected to Accelerated Aging

An investigation of an off-the-shelf solid-state lighting device with the primary focus on the accompanied light-emitting diode (LED) electrical driver (ED) has been conducted. A set of 10 EDs were exposed to temperature humidity life testing of 85% RH and 85 °C (85/85) without an electrical bias per the JEDEC standard JESD22-A101C in order to accelerate the ingress of moisture into the aluminum electrolytic capacitor (AEC) and the EDs in order to assess the reliability of the LED drivers for harsh environment applications. The capacitance and equivalent series resistance for each AEC inside the ED were measured using a handheld LCR meter as possible leading indications of failure. The photometric quantities of a single pristine light engine were monitored in order to investigate the interaction between the light engine and the EDs. These parameters were used in assessing the overall reliability of the EDs. In addition, a comparative analysis has been conducted between the 85/85 accelerated test data and a previously published high-temperature storage life accelerated test of 135 °C. The results of the 85/85 acceleration test and the comparative analysis are presented in this paper.

Prognostics of Damage Accrual in SSL Luminaires and Drivers Subjected to HTSL Accelerated Aging

This paper will show an investigation of off-the-shelf luminaires with the focus on the LED electronic drivers, specifically the aluminum electrolytic capacitors (AECs), that have been aged using high temperature shelf life (HTSL) testing of 135°C in order to prognosticate the remaining useful life of the luminaires. Luminaires have the potential of seeing excessive temperatures when being transported across the country or being stored in non-climate controlled warehouses. They are also being used in outdoor applications in desert environments that see little or no humidity but will experience extremely high temperatures during the day. This makes it important to increase our understanding of what effects being stored at high temperatures for a prolonged period of time will have on the usability and survivability of these devices. The U.S. Department of Energy has made a long term commitment to advance the efficiency, understanding and development of solid-state lighting (SSL) and is making a strong push for the acceptance and use of SSL products. In this work, the four AECs of three different types inside each LED electronic driver were studied. The change in capacitance and the change in equivalent series resistance (ESR) of the AECs were measured and considered to be a leading indication of failure of the LED system. These indicators were used to make remaining useful life predictions to develop an algorithm to predict the end of life of the AECs. The luminous flux of a pristine downlight module was also monitored using each LED electronic driver that was subjected to HTSL through the progression of the testing to determine a correlation between the light output of the lamp and the failing components of the LED electronic driver. Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) is a useful tool for assessment of the remaining life of electrical components and is demonstrated for AECs in this work.Copyright

Reliability of solid-state lighting electrical drivers subjected to WHTOL accelerated aging

An investigation of a solid-state lighting (SSL) luminaire with the focus on the electronic driver which has been exposed to a standard wet hot temperature operating life (WHTOL) of 85% RH and 85°C in order to assess reliability of prolonged exposer to a harsh environment has been conducted. SSL luminaires are beginning introduced as headlamps in some of todays luxury automobiles and may also be fulfilling a variety of important outdoor applications such as overhead street lamps, traffic signals and landscape lighting. SSL luminaires in these environments are almost certain to encounter excessive moisture from humidity and high temperatures for a persistent period of time. The lack of accelerated test methods for LEDs to assess long-term reliability prior to introduction into the marketplace, a need for SSL physics based PHM modeling indicators for assessment and prediction of LED life, as well as the U.S. Department of Energys R&D roadmap to replace todays lighting with SSL luminaires makes it important to increase the understanding of the reliability of SSL devices, specifically, in harsh environment applications. In this work, a set of SSL electrical drivers were investigated to determine failure mechanisms that occur during prolonged harsh environment applications. Each driver consists of four aluminum electrolytic capacitors (AECs) of three different types and was considered the weakest component inside the SSL electrical driver. The reliability of the electrical driver was assessed by monitoring the change in capacitance and the change in equivalent series resistance for each AEC, as well as monitoring the luminous flux of the SSL luminaire or the output of the electrical driver. The luminous flux of a pristine SSL electrical driver was also monitored in order to detect minute changes in the electrical drivers output and to aid in the investigation of the SSL luminaires reliability. The failure mechanisms of the electrical drivers have been determined and are presented in this paper.

Leading indicators for prognostic health management of electrical connectors subjected to random vibration

In this paper a leading indicators of failure has been developed to monitor the progression of fretting corrosion in electrical connectors and prognosticate remaining useful life. Connectors subjected to harsh environments may experience vibration resulting in fretting corrosion and degradation in contact resistance over time. Tin coated, rectangular-pin and socket electrical connectors have been studied. Connectors are extensively used in automotive systems in conjunction with wire harnesses. Electronics may be full filling many vehicle performance critical functions including: collision avoidance, lane departure warning, supplemental restraint, and driver distraction detection. Connector degradation may cause electrical failure during or prior to vehicle operation. In this paper, a random vibration test profile has been used to stimulate the contact resistance degradation due to connector fretting corrosion. The contact resistance has been measured in situ using the resistance spectroscopy method in conjunction with phase sensitive detection. It has been shown that precise resistance spectroscopy and phase measurements can provide a leading indicator of failure significantly prior to the traditional definition of failure. Prognostic health management (PHM) is a useful tool for assessment of the remaining life of electrical components, and is demonstrated for electrical connectors in this paper. The ability to predict the remaining useful life of a connector can benefit operators with the knowledge of when to schedule preventative maintenance, aid in the cost optimization of operations and products and increase safety by providing advanced warning of potential critical failures. The presented approach can be used for assessment of damage accrual in connectors systems in the pre-failure space and prognosticate remaining useful life. Impending failure can be identified prior to both intermittent and catastrophic failure. Repeatability of the setup and the robustness of the unique PHM prediction algorithms have been quantified.

SSL and LED life prediction and assessment of CCT shift

Solid-state lighting (SSL) products can have a predicted life of 70% lumen output (L70) from 26,000 to 40,000 hours using the LM-80-08 testing standards. Chromaticity shift, correlated color temperature (CCT) and lumen maintenance (LM) will dramatically reduce the nominal life of SSL luminaires. In this work, an off-the-shelf luminaire from Philips (AmbientLED) has been aged in a standard wet hot temperature operating life (WHTOL) of 85% relative humidity and 85°C (85/85) in order to assess reliability of prolonged exposer in a harsh environment. Failure criterion has been derived using the Arrhenius equation from the LM-80-08 standard, as well as the 60W LED Lamp test report from an isothermal environment of 45°C. This is a similar luminaire to the test vehicle used in this research. Data characterization between the two data sets has been carried out to determine the luminaires reliability and life under the 85/85 test conditions. This characterization allows for the determination of poor quality luminaire products in the market place. The distribution properties of the shifting mean values of CCT and LM were incorporated into the Bayesian Linear Regression (BLR) to determine the degradation pattern, in order to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of the system due to aging before the end-of-life (EoL).

Bayesian probabilistic model for life prediction and fault mode classification of solid state luminaires

A new method has been developed for assessment of the onset of degradation in solid state luminaires to classify failure mechanisms by using metrics beyond lumen degradation that are currently used for identification of failure. Luminous Flux output, Correlated Color Temperature Data on Philips LED Lamps has been gathered under 85°C/85%RH till lamp failure. Failure modes of the test population of the lamps have been studied to understand the failure mechanisms in 85°C/85%RH accelerated test. Results indicate that the dominant failure mechanism is the discoloration of the LED encapsulant inside the lamps which is the likely cause for the luminous flux degradation and the color shift. The acquired data has been used in conjunction with Bayesian Probabilistic Models to identify luminaires with onset of degradation much prior to failure through identification of decision boundaries between lamps with accrued damage and lamps beyond the failure threshold in the feature space. In addition luminaires with different failure modes have been classified separately from healthy pristine luminaires. The α-λ plots have been used to evaluate the robustness of the proposed methodology. Results show that the predicted degradation for the lamps tracks the true degradation observed during 85°C/85%RH during accelerated life test fairly closely within the ±20% confidence bounds. Correlation of model prediction with experimental results indicates that the presented methodology allows the early identification of the onset of failure much prior to development of complete failure distributions and can be used for assessing the damage state of SSLs in fairly large deployments. It is expected that, the new prediction technique will allow the development of failure distributions without testing till L70 life for the manifestation of failure.

Life prediction and classification of failure modes in solid state luminaires using Bayesian Probabilistic Models

A new method has been developed for assessment of the onset of degradation in solid state luminaires to classify failure mechanisms by using metrics beyond lumen degradation that are currently used for identification of failure. Luminous Flux output, Correlated Color Temperature Data on Philips LED Lamps has been gathered under 85°C/85%RH till lamp failure. The acquired data has been used in conjunction with Bayesian Probabilistic Models to identify luminaires with onset of degradation much prior to failure through identification of decision boundaries between lamps with accrued damage and lamps beyond the failure threshold in the feature space. In addition luminaires with different failure modes have been classified separately from healthy pristine luminaires. It is expected that, the new test technique will allow the development of failure distributions without testing till L70 life for the manifestation of failure.

An Investigation of Catastrophic Failure in Solid-State Lamps Exposed to Harsh Environment Operational Conditions

Today’s lighting technology is steadily becoming more energy efficient and less toxic to the environment since the passing of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) [1]. EISA has mandated a higher energy efficiency standard for lighting products and the phase out of the common incandescent lamp. This has led lighting manufacturers to pursue solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies for consumer lighting applications. However, two major roadblocks are hindering the transition process to SSL lamps: cost and quality. In order to cut cost, manufactures are moving towards cheaper packaging materials and a variety of package architecture construction techniques which may potentially erode the quality of the lamp and reduce its survivability in everyday applications. Typically, SSL lamps are given product lifetimes of over twenty years based off of the IES TM-21-11 lighting standard which does not include moisture effects or large operational temperatures [2]. A group of recently released off-the-shelf lamps have undergone a steady-state temperature humidity bias life test of 85°C/85%RH (85/85) to investigate the reliability in harsh environment applications.The lack of accelerated test methods for lamps to assess reliability prior to introduction into the marketplace does not exist in literature. There is a need for SSL physics based models for the assessment and prediction of a lamp’s lifetime which is being spearheaded by the DOE [3]. In order to be fully accepted in the marketplace, SSL lamps must be able to perform similarly to incandescent lamps in these environments, as well as live up to the lifetime claims of manufacturers.A lamp’s package architecture must be designed with performance factors in mind, as well as address some of the known and published package related failure mechanisms, such as carbonization of the encapsulant material, delamination, encapsulant yellowing, lens cracking, and phosphor thermal quenching [4]. Each failure mechanism produces the similar failure mode of lumen degradation predominately due to two contributing factors: high junction temperature and moisture ingress. The current state-of-the-art has focused on individual areas of the lamp, such as the LED chip, substrate material, electrical driver design and thermal management techniques. [5] – [16] Looking at the lamp as a whole is a novel approach and has not been seen before in literature.This work followed the JEDEC standard JESD22-A101C of 85/85 with a one hour interval of applied voltage followed by a one hour interval of no applied voltage [17]. This test was performed continuously for each SSL lamp until it became nonoperational, i.e. did not turn on. Periodically, photometric measurements were taken following the IES LM-79-08 standard at room temperature using an integrating sphere, a spectrometer, and lighting software. The overall health of the SSL lamps was assed using the relative luminous flux (RLF), correlated color temperature (CCT) and the color difference (Δu′v′) using the Euclidean distance of the CIE 1976 color space coordinates. Finally, a Weibull analysis was completed to compare the characteristic lifetime of the SSL lamp to the actual rated lifetime. An important result from this work shows that the rated lifetime does not come close to the actual lifetime when the SSL lamps are used in a harsh humid environment which is fairly common in outdoor applications across the U.S. Also, the photometric results are presented for the entire lifetime of each SSL lamp under test.Copyright

Fault-Mode Classification of Solid State Luminaires Using Bayesian Probabilistic Models

A new method has been developed for assessment of the onset of degradation in solid state luminaires to classify failure mechanisms by using metrics beyond lumen degradation that are currently used for identification of failure. Luminous Flux output, Correlated Color Temperature Data on Philips LED Lamps has been gathered under 85°C/85%RH till lamp failure. The acquired data has been used in conjunction with Bayesian Probabilistic Models to identify luminaires with onset of degradation much prior to failure through identification of decision boundaries between lamps with accrued damage and lamps beyond the failure threshold in the feature space. In addition luminaires with different failure modes have been classified separately from healthy pristine luminaires. It is expected that, the new test technique will allow the development of failure distributions without testing till L70 life for the manifestation of failure.Copyright