Course summary

Industrial applications such as aviation systems widely suffer from a particular type of fault known as No-Fault-Fault (NFF). Term NFF points to the fact that real failure remains hidden during the general troubleshooting due to its random nature. Hence, the potential failure cannot be fixed by evaluating technicians; and of course, it profoundly adds to the maintenance costs. Cause of NFF is attributed to various issues including oxidation, mechanical stresses (vibration) electromagnetic fields, poor design and bad/wrong operation. They cause various intermittency issues in; for instance, chassis, PCBs, connectors, cables and wires as the system gradually ages. The intermittent fault is a malfunction of a device or system that occurs at intervals (presenting irregularity) in a device or system that functions normally at other times. In many industrial applications such as in-line replaceable unit (LRU) of aviation systems, intermittent faults found in the power chain of a system can be cascaded into other electronic circuitry, processors, microcontrollers, and memories causing random intermittent failures.