Determining Root Causes of Mysterious Hardware Failures using High Resolution CT Scanning

摘要

During testing of actuators for flight programs, failures have occurred that required closure with anunderstanding of the root cause of the failure. Some actuators intended for a Mars mission called InSightexhibited intermittent changes of the winding resistance of the motors during temperature changes wasextremely baffling. It was critical to determine the cause of the intermittent characteristic because theactuators were residual flight hardware from a previous program and the company that provided the motorswas no longer in business. Using an X-Ray Computed-Tomography (CT) method that produces a threedimensionalcomputer model of the item, the exact source of the intermittent failure was determined andcompletely understood – at dimensions of less than 20 microns. In another case, after the completion of anactuator’s life-test-to-failure, inspection was required to determine the source of the failure. The size of theactuator (10-mm diameter) required destructive means to get to the interior of the actuator for inspection,risking the loss of the source of the failure. Using CT imaging, the source of the failure was determined.