Accelerated Aging

Accelerated aging is the expedited aging process of a product by subjecting it to aggravated operational and environmental conditions like temperature, pressure, humidity, light, vibration, etc. The goal of the study is to achieve long service life exposure in a shorter time frame to understand possible failure mode. It is routinely used in the medical device industry to estimate the lifespan or shelf life of products. It is also used in determining the aging response in structural materials and metal alloys, shelf life in the food industry, degradation chemistry in polymers, assessment of sealing faults in packaging, etc. Furthermore, mechanical testing, physical and chemical analysis, potency, and other metrology testing are also done on the sample or device to quantify the aging process to generate data for prediction models.

The environmental chambers and methodologies used for accelerated aging vary widely depending on the product being tested. There are industry standards in place, including AANSI ASTM, ISO, etc. Custom conditions and protocols are also developed for unique test article requirements.