This past winter, many of us in the United States lived through a Polar Vortex. For anyone who is not familiar with the term, a Polar Vortex is a weather pattern made up of very cold temperatures, high winds, and frenzied TV weather forecasters who are beside themselves in enthusiastically explaining to the viewers how historically cold this particular weather system is. … [Read more...]
About the Author
Ross Wilcoxon
Ross Wilcoxon is a Principal Mechanical Engineer in the Rockwell Collins Advanced Technology Center. He conducts research and supports product development related to component reliability, electronics packaging and thermal management for communication, processing, displays and radars. Prior to joining Rockwell Collins in 1998, he was an assistant professor at South Dakota State University.
Statistics Corner: A Failure to Fail
Component reliability testing can lead to an inherent disagreement in what different people hope to see from the results. Designers who want to use the components hope that no components fail during qualification testing to verify that they meet the reliability requirement. In contrast, analysts who characterize the reliability of the components need a sufficient number of … [Read more...]
Statistics Corner: Modifying Sample Size
Author’s note: This article was initially published in a compilation of some of the articles published in the Electronics Cooling Magazine ‘Statistics Corner’ [4]. However, it was never published as part of a standard ECM issue. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to reintroduce it to the readers to this series on statistical analysis methods. Abstract Reliability … [Read more...]
Thermocouple Transient Behavior
Previous articles in this series described how thermocouple wire size [1] and thermocouple attachment method [2] can affect steady state temperature measurements. This article briefly discusses how these factors can affect the transient response of thermocouples when used to monitor temperatures that change value over time. Bare Thermocouple Junction Before addressing … [Read more...]
Tech Brief: Thermocouple Attachment
The previous article in this series on thermocouples described how the size of the thermocouple wire could affect its accuracy [1]. This is particularly true if the wire is exposed to high convection coefficients. This article addresses a separate issue, namely the degree to which the attachment method impacts thermocouple readings. As it turns out, once again the … [Read more...]
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