What is the Durability Test?

Testing products and materials is essential to ensure their safety, reliability, and a certain level of performance, especially over time.

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This is where durability testing comes into play , which verifies the resistance of a product or material to wear, aging, and other environmental and mechanical stress factors.

In the following article we will see what the durability test consists of, for which sectors it is important and how it is performed.

Types of Tests in Durability Testing

The durability test is not actually a single test but a family of tests that subject the sample to different conditions.

The types of tests that fall under durability testing vary from industry to industry, from product to product, but these are some of the most common and cross-cutting: 

• Fatigue Tests: These tests verify the resistance of materials to repeated load cycles, such as vibrations, shocks or movements.
• Abrasion Tests: evaluate the resistance of surfaces or coatings to wear caused by repeated friction.
• Corrosion Tests: Simulate exposure to corrosive conditions, such as humidity or aggressive chemical environments, to determine resistance to rust or chemical degradation.
• Climatic Tests: Simulate exposure to changes in temperature, humidity, sunlight and other extreme environmental conditions.

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In which sectors is durability testing needed?

Due to its universality, durability testing is important in almost all industrial sectors.

every product that needs to guarantee long-term reliability is subject to durability testing. But the most common ones are the following:

• Automotive: especially for components such as brakes, suspensions and tyres, they must withstand repeated loads and adverse environmental conditions.
• Aerospace: Planes and spacecraft must withstand extreme stresses and rapid climate changes.
• Electronics: Both consumer electronics and components are subjected to a rigorous series of tests, including durability testing. 
• Construction: Building materials must maintain their structural integrity for years, withstanding continuous exposure to the elements.

Climatic Tests for Durability Testing

Climatic tests occupy an important place within durability testing, because almost all products are exposed to more or less extreme environmental conditions and sudden changes in temperature. 

For this reason, it is necessary to have a climatic chamber to carry out the durability test.

The climatic chamber is a laboratory instrument capable of simulating different environmental conditions inside it, thanks to precise control of the temperature and relative humidity.

Furthermore, climatic chambers can be equipped with lighting systems and diffusers to simulate exposure to sunlight and corrosive agents, respectively.

The climatic tests of the durability test are regulated by a series of internationally recognized standards among which we can mention:

• ISO 16750-4: Specifies environmental requirements for electrical and electronic components in vehicles, including temperature and humidity tests.
• ISO 9227: Describes methods for conducting salt spray tests, useful for evaluating corrosion resistance.
• ISO 4892: covers exposure to artificial light and weathering to test foraccelerated ageing of polymeric materials.

These standards provide detailed guidelines on how to conduct tests and evaluate results, ensuring that tested products meet stringent durability requirements.

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The FDM Climatic Chamber for Durability Testing

For over seventy years, FDM – Environment Makers has been a leading company in the field of climate testing.

FDM climatic chambers are designed to perform all the above-mentioned climatic tests and meet international durability testing requirements.

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Reference Standards

• IEC 60068-2-2 — Environmental testing Test B: Dry heat, basic reference for stationary dry heat tests used in durability qualification.
• IEC 60068-2-64 — Test Fh: Vibration, broadband random, specifies PSD profiles for mechanical durability tests.
• MIL-STD-810H Method 500/501/502 — Military Methods for Low Pressure, High Heat, Cold: Defense Hardware Environmental Qualification Testing.
• ISO 16750 — Environmental conditions and testing for electrical and electronic equipment for road vehicles, automotive tier-1 reference.
• IEC 61215 — Terrestrial crystalline photovoltaic modules: Design qualification and approval with accelerated durability testing.
• JEDEC JESD22-A104 — Temperature Cycling: Thermal cycling for semiconductor package life estimation.

Authoritative Sources

• JEDEC Solid State Technology AssociationPublishes the JESD22 series for reliability qualification of electronic components.
• MIL Handbook Database (DLA). Official repository of military standards MIL-STD-810 and MIL-HDBK-217F for MTBF estimates.
• IEC – International Electrotechnical Commission. Maintains the IEC 60068 series for industrial environmental testing.

Frequently Asked Questions about Durability Testing

Are durability and reliability the same thing?

No. Durability indicates the ability of a product to maintain its specified functions for its nominal useful life under expected conditions of use, typically measured in cycles, operating hours, and kilometers traveled. Reliabilityis the probability R(t) that the product will function correctly without failure for a time t, expressed by MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) or MTTF (Mean Time To Failure). A component can be durable but unreliable (example: a lamp that lasts 10,000 hours but frequently fails suddenly) or reliable but undurable (a component that does not fail but has a short nominal life). Accelerated durability tests apply amplified stresses (temperature, vibration, humidity) to compress real-world life into a few weeks of testing, using aging models to extrapolate the data. The ultimate goal is to validate the B10 life (time beyond which 10% of the parts have failed) or equivalent contractual specifications.

What is the acceleration factor Arrhenius?

The Arrhenius describes how the rate of thermally activated degradation mechanisms increases exponentially with temperature: AF = exp[(Ea/k)(1/T_field – 1/T_test)], where Ea is the activation energy in eV, k = 8.617e-5 eV/K the Boltzmann constant, T absolute temperature. Typical values ​​of Ea: 0.7 eV for metallic corrosion, 0.8 eV for electromigration in Al, 1.0 eV for dielectric oxidation. A test at 125 C versus use at 55 C with Ea = 0.7 eV yields AF ~ 38x: 1000 h of testing is equivalent to 38000 h (4.3 years) in the field. For humidity, Peck (AF ~ exp(Ea/kT) * RH^n) or Hallberg-Peck models are used. For vibration, Miner's law applies with a fatigue exponent m=4-6 depending on the material. The combination of multiple stresses requires structured design-of-experiments and HALT/HASS profiles that accelerate failure mechanisms >100x.

MIL-STD-810 vs. IEC 60068: When to Apply Which?

MIL-STD-810H is the reference standard for defense and aerospace hardware with 29 environmental methods: driving rain, sand and dust, ice shedding, explosion, immersion, acid sulfate. The profiles are mission-specific (tropical, arctic, mountain, sea) and require lengthy testing (6-12 months for full qualification). IEC 60068 is an international industrial standard with more streamlined basic methods, oriented to commercial, industrial, and automotive electronics. IEC 60068-2-1 (cold), -2-2 (heat), -2-14 (thermal shock), -2-30 (damp heat cyclic), and -2-78 (damp heat steady) cover 90% of civil qualifications. For automotive, ISO 16750 (IEC subset with vehicle-specific profiles) is used, for railway applications EN 50125, and for medical applications IEC 60601-1-11. A dual-use defense/civil product often includes MIL->IEC cross-references documented in the test plan. The final choice depends on the customer's specifications and the geographic area of ​​use.

How to set up a design-of-experiment for durability?

The DoE for durability balances failure mechanism coverage, test cost, and schedule time. Key steps: (1) preliminary FMECA to identify dominant failure modes and critical stresses; (2) selection of acceleration stresses (temperature, RH, vibration, cycling) consistent with Arrh/Peck/Coffin-Manson; (3) definition of target acceleration factor (typically 20-100x); (4) statistical sample sizing with Weibull test (minimum 10-30 samples for 90% confidence interval); (5) 2^ko Latin Square factorial matrix with orthogonal stresses; (6) definition of failure criteria (parametric vs. catastrophic); (7) temporal or failure censoring planning . Software such as Weibull++ or Minitab calculate distribution parameters (eta, beta) and produce Weibull plots for B10/B50 estimation. The final analysis should include confidence interval on predicted life and sensitivity to Ea assumptions.