What was the challenge or problem to solve?
The customer, a company in the industrial sector, detected a series of failures of electronic components, specifically in membrane keyboards subjected to extreme environmental conditions of high humidity and temperature. For this reason, solutions that the customer considered necessary to avoid these failures were implemented.
In order to verify whether the solutions used were effective, i.e. whether or not they extended the lifetime of the keyboards, the customer decided to count on us to carry out a comparison between these improved keyboards and the original ones.
INFINITIA’s Forensic Engineering team carried out an aging simulation under extreme humidity and temperature environmental conditions. This test allowed us to determine that the improvements applied by the customer to its components were not enough to prevent their deterioration. In this way, it was possible to work on the search for new improvement proposals to increase the durability of the parts.
Therefore, it was conveyed to the customer that it was feasible to replace this material while maintaining the required conductivity conditions.
The project began with a literature search to determine which test conditions were suitable for simulating the aging of materials. We then performed the tests in a salt spray chamber. Thanks to this equipment, we were able to reproduce extreme environmental conditions with respect to relative humidity, temperature and salinity. Visual inspection of the keyboards made it possible to detect the point at which faults began to appear and thus to make a comparison between the improved components and the original ones.