Using Ultrasound Technology to Improve Device Reliability

An article recently published on www.emdt.co.uk expains how acoustic micro imaging technology can identify latent defects in products during development and manufacture and prevent field failures. When a medical device fails during active use, the failure is often preceded by a latent defect of some type. If the failure is not electrical in nature—or even if it is—the latent defect often turns out to have been a structural flaw such as an internal crack, delamination or void. Given time, vibration and thermal stresses, these are the types of latent defects that can cause field failures in a variety of medical devices.

To avoid such failures, manufacturers may want to look for these types of defects at an early stage—during development of the device or on a sampling basis during production. Cracks, delaminations and voids are all gaps. They can be found by destructive physical analysis, in which the device is typically cut open and polished to provide a magnified optical view. They can also be found and imaged by acoustic micro imaging, which is nondestructive and especially sensitive to internal gaps.

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Tags: acoustic micro imaging, latent defects, ultrasound technology, www.emdt.co.uk