Mr. Slee specializes in electrical engineering issues such as electrical failure analysis, preproduction circuit safety and functional analysis and testing, electrical reliability analysis, electrical root cause of fire evaluation, arc flash explosion investigation, and printed circuit board and electrical component failure analysis.
Mr. Slee is heavily involved in Exponent’s battery failure analysis activities and has performed many failure analyses of lithium ion batteries, as well as failure analyses of batteries of other chemistries, such as nickel metal hydride and lead acid batteries.
Mr. Slee’s experience includes printed circuit board failure analysis specifically as a result of failure of the insulating materials of the printed circuit board. He is familiar with the many possible root causes of the insulating material failures, from degradation due to long-term heating or humidity, to conductive anodic filament formation, to electrical component failure. He has experience in failure analysis of other electrical insulating systems that lead to overheating failures.
Mr. Slee has performed many projects testing electronic systems for safety and functionality. He has performed many investigations focused on reliability and is an American Society for Quality Certified Reliability Engineer and as such is very familiar with the tools of reliability engineering, such as Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Mean Time Between Failure Calculations, Single Point Failure Analysis, and Parts Derating evaluation.
Slee D. Printed circuit board propagating faults. Proceedings, 30th International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA), November 2004.
Technical Reports
Slee D. Jellybean yacht fire failure analysis report. Report for Todd & Associates, Inc., 2006.
Presentations
Slee D. Presentation to the California Conference of Arson Investigators on battery safety issues and failure analysis; presentation included information on electrical circuit concerns as well as battery exothermic reactions, March 2008.
Slee D. Martin, RJ, Slee, D., Christiansen, E.; Vehicle and Vessel Fires: When to Retain an Engineer; International Association of Special Investigation Units – Southern California Chapter Meeting, January 2008.
Slee D. Presentation to the Cellular Telephone Industry Association on battery failure analysis methodology, December 2007.
Slee D. Presentation to the San Fernando Valley Chapter of ASM International on printed circuit board propagating faults, April 2006.
Slee D. Presentation to the California Conference of Arson Investigators on battery safety issues and failure analysis; presentation included information on electrical circuit concerns as well as battery exothermic reactions, July 2006.
Slee D. Presentation to the San Fernando Valley Chapter of ASM International on battery safety issues and failure analysis, presentation included information on electrical circuit concerns as well as battery exothermic reactions, October 2006.
Slee D. Presentation to the 30th International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA), Printed circuit board propagating faults, November 2004.
Performed failure analysis and testing of battery packs and battery life testing on handheld and notebook computers. For the latter he developed an automated test protocol, representing various use patterns, which will allow standardized battery life testing of many notebook computers at once.
Performed root cause analysis of propagating faults on printed circuit boards, as well as evaluation of soldering quality on printed circuit boards.
Performed electrical characterization and analysis of high and power frequency fluorescent lamp ballasts.
Performed electronic reliability prediction analyses using the Bellcore and MIL217 HDBK standards. The electronics analyzed were state of the art telecommunications products using many of the latest micrococontrollers and digital signal processors.
Performed failure analysis of switching power supplies and DC-to-DC converters. He has also performed preproduction acceptance testing of switching power supplies. This testing covers a variety of issues, including ripple voltages, phase-gain analysis, and timing, and required modification of the power supplies for testing.
Performed failure analysis of semiconductor amplifiers that required decapsulation of the amplifiers, and determination of the integrated circuit’s internal structure from scanning electron microscope photos and information gained from an electrical curve tracer.
Performed recovery of deleted and lost data from hard disk drives.
Performed electrical cause of fire investigations.
Involved in Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) related investigations.
Performed electronic safety interlock and control system investigations.
Designed and executed reliability test programs for electronic systems.