Physics-of-failure: an approach to reliable product development

Reliability assessments based on physics-of-failure methods incorporate reliability into the design process to prevent parts from failing in service. An understanding of the physics-of-failure is necessary in applications which afford little opportunity for testing, or for reliability growth. This paper presents an overview of physics-of-failure and a case study of the application of physics-of-failure to a specific failure mechanism called conductive filament formation.