Risk and Reliability Studies for the Automotive Industry
Project Description and Significance
This program involves the design and development of a robust system that will perform on-board diagnostics (OBD) of automotive emissions. The system must be highly reliable; it is intended to last for 10 years or 150,000 miles. Sandia is working with members of the consortium USCAR (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).
The program is critical to the automotive industry because of new and pending regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and various states. Furthermore, USCAR estimates that the development of a successful OBD could gain market share for the U.S. automobile industry, approximately 10 percent over the next 10 years, producing 250,000 additional jobs.
Sandia will work in the risk-management and testing parts of the development of the OBD. This will include the following specific activities:
Signal processing and data analysis
Reliability modeling and risk analysis
Life testing (up to 10 years)
Statistical analysis of failure data and risk reduction
Test design
Software and human-factors engineering and reliability
Details of some of these activities are in the fact sheets on "Reliability of Semiconductor Equipment" and "Reliability of an Environmentally Friendly Soldering Process for Printed Wiring Boards."
Future Work
In addition to the development of the OBD, Sandia will participate in the development of support technology for new engines, also in cooperation with USCAR.
For further information, contact:
Robert M. Cranwell
Sandia National Laboratories, MS-0746
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0746
Phone: (505) 844-8368
e-mail: rmcranw@sandia.gov
Submitted October 1995 Layout design by Wanda Mar.
Submitted October 1995