The rush to get a new product developed and out to the market for sale has put an ever growing strain on the developers to find better ways to test their products and make sure they are ready as quickly as possible. In response to this industry no longer has the luxury of taking their time testing a new product before it is made available, they have instead turned to accelerated testing methods such as the highly accelerated stress test to put their new product through its paces in a very short period of time. Because many of the products being made are going to be used in some very harsh environments sophisticate methods such as the highly accelerated stress test must be used to insure that the product will perform no matter it will used. Traditional testing methods are just not capable of performing tests that are rigorous enough to tell a developer the information they need to improve a product well enough to perform in these environments.

The highly accelerated stress test is used to provide the manufacturer with far more information in a much shorter timeframe by placing the test sample in a carefully controlled environment that can simulate some of the worst condition possible. However care must be taken to make sure that while severe testing is needed it must not be so severe that it causes failure in conditions that the product would never see in real life. Instead the highly accelerated stress test uses processes like frequent power on/off cycles, extremes of both temperature and humidity with rapid cycling between hot and cold temperatures and relatively high vibration levels to put the equipment through its paces and see how well it stands up. The idea is to find out if the product will stand up to the tests and identify any weakness that might exist. This information allows the manufacturer to re-examine the product and if necessary go back to the design phase and make changes to ensure that these problems are fixed before the product is sold. The highly accelerated stress test is similar to the highly accelerated life test which is used to find out how long a product will last, but there are some small but significant differences between the two tests.

The differences lie in the test equipment that is used, the level of stress at which each test is performed, how the data that is gathered is going to be used and the basic reasons for which each type of testing is performed. In the development of a new product each of these testing methods can be critical to the manufacturer and provide invaluable product development information at various stages. Making sure that your product development team understands the concepts behind the highly accelerated stress test as well as the other testing methods can make a big difference in how fast you get your new product to market. Let Reliability Help train your staff in all phases of HALT, HASS and HAST testing to help ensure that every product you develop meets the needs of your customers.