Your outdoor furniture, the exterior of your home, and your fence or other outdoor elements of your home can be damaged and affected due to outside weather conditions. How weather affects these exterior elements of a home depends on accelerated weathering testing. This testing is done using a climatometer and is used in the UV aging process in several industries. Test equipment such as xenon arc chambers, ultraviolet chambers, and carbon arc chambers are classified as meteorological instruments.
Testing laboratories use a variety of exposure criteria and cycles in accelerated aging testing. Standards such as ASTM G155, IEC 60068-2-5, and SEA J2412 use a xenon arc as the UV source. Numerous studies have shown that it is difficult to determine the time compression factor, or aging rate, which is the rate at which weather gauges are accelerated by exposure to real outdoor weather.
How long will my product be exposed to the equivalent of 1 day/month of outdoor weather in the Test Chamber?
There are several unresolved issues regarding the acceleration factor and weather meter tests. For example, professionals have not yet determined how long testing would be required to simulate the effects of exposing a product outdoors for 5 years. Due to uncertain weather conditions, it is not possible to determine the exact relationship between aging in the Test Chamber and exposure to outdoor weather.
Mother Nature cannot be simulated 100% by laboratory equipment. Different countries have different weather conditions in different months. When testing with a weather meter in a laboratory, the components used such as lamps, filters, water, temperature and irradiance settings are well specified and well controlled according to the test standards. In contrast, outdoor exposure varies with geographic location, altitude, season, atmosphere, environment, and many other factors. Therefore, it is not possible to calculate a formula involving the aging time between aging and outdoor exposure.
Accelerated aging testing is useful for comparative testing. It's a quick process to gain important insights, rather than waiting years for data and feedback from customers. Also, it's a faster way to compare your product with those of your competitors. Although the results cannot be 100% accurate due to uneven weather conditions, conclusions can be drawn according to the testing standards.
