The potential for failure in electronic systems due to thermal and mechanical loading of printed circuit boards (PCBs) is escalating due to steadily increasing power dissipation combined with smaller board sizes.
It has not been practical to accurately simulate PCB deformation before now because too much computing power is required to solve a finite element model that contains the full board geometry.
A new ANSYS multiphysics methodology overcomes this problem by simplifying the PCB geometry while tracking the material properties of each segment of the board. Engineers can use this new methodology to accurately predict the deformation generated by thermal–mechanical stresses, random vibration and mechanical shock within the time frame of a normal design iteration.
View: Preventing PCB Failures Due to Thermal and Mechanical Stresses (PDF)