Analysis of Long-Term Change in the Thermal Resistance of Extruded Insulation Materials Through Accelerated Tests

Two experiments were executed to examine the slice accelerated test method, suggested in ISO 11561 “Ageing of thermal insulation materials—Determination of the long-term change in thermal resistance of closed-cell plastics (accelerated laboratory test methods)” and to observe the changes in the thermal performance of insulation material over time by the real-time ageing process. The accelerated test method was conducted for 120 consecutive days using 10 mm thick-sliced specimens, which were sampled from a 50 mm thick plate body. The real-time ageing process was performed for 5000 consecutive days under constant temperature and relative humidity conditions as of 20 ± 5 °C and 50 ± 5% without any slicing. Degradation of thermal performance was shown to be stabilized at around 38 to 41% down from the initial values, which were correspondent with the approximately 10 days after the initial time. The real-time ageing process revealed similar degradation levels at around 130 days after the starting point. Converting the results using the scaling method specified in ISO 11561, the change was found in the range of 37 to 41% for the thermal resistance after 25 years and of 30 to 38% for the 25-year-average thermal resistance, respectively. Within the 10% error range, both the accelerated method and real-time ageing resulted in a similar level of degradation. Consequently, it was our observation that the slice accelerated test was quite enough to predict the practical degradation of insulation materials with at least 90% of accuracy under the specified time duration, temperature and thickness satisfactions.

Optimization of Damage Equivalent Accelerated Test Spectrum Derivation Using Multiple Non-Gaussian Vibration Data

The response spectra are widely used in the damage assessment of non-Gaussian random vibration environments and the derivation of damage equivalent accelerated test spectrum. The effectiveness of the latter is strongly affected by modal parameter uncertainties, multiple field data processing, and the nonsmooth shape of the derived power spectral density (PSD). Optimization of accelerated test spectrum derivation based on dynamic parameter selection and iterative update of spectrum envelope is presented in this paper. The extreme response spectrum (ERS) envelope of the field data is firstly taken as the limiting spectrum, and the corresponding relationship between damping coefficient, fatigue exponent, and damage equivalent PSD under different test times is constructed to achieve the dynamic selection of uncertain parameters in the response spectrum model. Then, an iterative update model based on the weighted sum of fatigue damage spectrum (FDS) error is presented to reduce the error introduced by the nonsmooth shape of the derived PSD. The case study shows that undertest can be effectively avoided by the dynamic selection of model parameters. The weighted error is reduced from 80.1% to 7.5% after 7 iterations. Particularly, the error is close to 0 within the peak and valley frequency band.

Development of an accelerated test for pitting corrosion of CUSTOM 450 by rDHM

A key application of CUSTOM 450 alloy is in the construction of gas turbine compressor blades. The study of pitting corrosion can prevent the failure of many gas turbine compressor blades. In this study, a reflective digital holography microscopy method was employed to investigate the growth of pitting corrosion in depth. To this end, a constant potential of 350 mVSCE in a 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution was applied to the specimen. The generated pits were simulated in three dimensions, and it was indicated that pitting corrosion rate was decreased as time passed. Comparing the obtained experimental data with the data gathered from the real industrial environment surrounding a compressor installation, an accelerated test was proposed. By the proposed accelerated test, it is possible to produce a pit similar to the one that will be initiated and propagated at any time in the future in real conditions.