GM GMW3172: General Specification for Electrical/Electronic Components Environmental/Durability

The GMW3172 standard applies to electrical components for passenger or commercial vehicles and trucks. The standard describes the environmental durability tests for E/E components based on mounting location. GMW1372 standard specified durability and environmental requirements and analytical/development/validation activities for electrical components that are used in a vehicle environment to guarantee reliability over a lifetime.

The GMW3172 standard is applied in 4 testing phases:
 

• Analysis
• Development
• Design Validation (DV)
• Product Validation (PV)

The analysis phase of GMW3172 is the earliest phase that involves component design and improvement. The analysis phase designs reliability and robustness into the component. The development phase of GMW3172 is performed on the first samples to make a qualitative evaluation of the samples and improve the initial design. Design Validation is the third phase meant to provide a quantitative and qualitative verification of the component design. Design validation includes environmental, durability, and reliability actives on materials and production-intent designs. The fourth testing phase of GMW3172 is product validation and provides a quantitative and qualitative verification of environmental, durability, and reliability actives on samples made on the manufacturing process and production tooling. 
 

Mechanical Testing

This section describes vibration testing combined with temperature, mechanical shock testing, and drop testing, etc. of electrical/electronic components. The mechanical testing is concerned about the following mounting locations on a vehicle.
 

• Engine or Transmission
• Unsprung Masses
• Sprung Masses - Passenger Compartment
• Sprung Masses - All other areas

Analysis of product specifications and the development of the test plan is a crucial stage of product validation. A large variety of required test procedures would cause a delay in testing time due to the high volume of required test procedures. The test flow is possible to have several test legs that ran parallel in order to accommodate destructive tests that include flammability, assembly crush, immersion, and various others. A example of GMW3172 is illustrated below:

Figure 1 - Example of a product validation test flow per GMW3172