Dr. Scott Grindy presented “Accelerated Life Testing of Crosslinked Polyethylene (PEX) Materials” at the 2021 International Polyolefins Conference, which took place virtually February 23-24, 2021.
Accelerated life testing is often used during the research and design phase of a new product to forecast the lifetime of a part or material in service. A well-executed accelerated testing program can be used to predict part lifetimes rapidly, typically several orders of magnitude faster than the service lifetime of the part. However, there is often a significant tradeoff between the time it takes to execute an accelerated testing program and the accuracy of the lifetime estimate produced by the accelerated testing program.
In this talk, Dr. Grindy described an accelerated life test program for crosslinked polyethylene (PEX). He examined and justified the assumptions made and used a combination of chemical and mechanical testing to forecast the lifetimes of crosslinked polyethylene materials. While this study was focused on PEX, the methods are applicable to broad classes of polymers, including thermoplastics, elastomers, and adhesives.
The presentation took place on February 24, but it was recorded and is available to watch anytime.