Tame your environmental test projects

High heat. Freezing cold. Torrential rain. Automobiles must be able to withstand a range of extreme conditions, and the operating environments for aircraft, especially spacecraft, are even more severe.

To effectively test complex automotive and aerospace systems for widely varying environments, you must have the right test procedures, the right equipment, and an effective test process in place. The following tips will help you develop and manage a successful environmental test project:

• Do your homework. Before you begin testing, find out what test standards are available for the types of components or assemblies you need to test. For automotive and aerospace component and system test standards, begin your research by going to the SAE International Web site (http://www.sae.org) and searching the standards directory.

The AV-Series chambers offer rapid temperature change rates with combined temperature/ humidity/vibration environments. Systems can be equipped with either electrodynamic or mechanical vibration systems. The chambers interface with both horizontal and vertical electrodynamic vibration systems with rear or vertical sliding doors. Courtesy of Cincinnati SubZero.

Another source of test standards are the automakers themselves. While some automakers simply adopt the SAE standards for a particular component or system, others may draft their own test standard, adding or deleting test requirements as they see fit.

You should check to see if any of the large OEMs have specific test requirements when drafting your test plan. Consider doing this even if you plan to sell to only one or two OEMs. You never know when you might get the chance to sell to the others, and if you can say that your product is already tested to their standards, you'll have a leg up on the competition.

• Consult with environmental test equipment vendors. Another good source of information on test standards are the test equipment vendors. Many of their engineers are on the committees that draft the test standards, and they have a stake in making sure that you, as a customer or potential customer, use the correct test procedures.
• Tailor the test to your application. Remember that test standards are drafted by committee, and are by nature drafted to be very broad. The test methods described may not exactly fit your needs or give you the data you want.

Also remember that test standards change slowly while technology changes rapidly. Test methods more than four or five years old may no longer be sufficient for a product using newer technology. To be effective, you may have to use more stringent test conditions or run more tests.

• Use the right equipment. Using an improperly sized test chamber or one that's not designed for a particular test could invalidate test results and waste time and money. Using a chamber that's too large or one with inadequate heating and cooling capacity could hamper your test efforts by not being able to change temperature quickly enough. Finding this out after you've already run a series of tests is a costly mistake.
• Outsource testing, where appropriate. One way to avoid using the wrong equipment is to outsource testing. Test labs are in the business of knowing which tests to run in which chambers, and they generally have the experience to do it right.
• Develop a test-data management plan. Environmental test programs can generate a lot of data, including both environmental condition data and component or system performance data. Before you're bombarded with megabytes of information, think about how you'll archive it.

One organization that might be able to help is the Association for Standardisation of Automation and Measuring Systems (ASAM; http://www.asam.de). In addition, the ISO (http://www.iso.ch) has published ISO TS 13499, "Road vehicles — Multimedia data exchange format for impact tests." While this standard is nominally intended for managing impact test data, it could be useful for managing other test data as well.

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