It takes up less floor space, uses less liquid nitrogen, requires less compressed air, and consumes less electricity – four advantages to the new AST-18/RS-28 Accelerated Stress Test System by Thermotron. The AST-18 system can show in just hours how a particular product will hold up after years of use, reducing product development time and helping to get higher quality products to market faster. It provides a cost-effective and more affordable alternative to newcomers to Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) techniques.
The AST-18 applies extreme stress onto products through ultra-high rates of product temperature change, and repetitive, shock multi-axes vibration. Its portability may be just the ticket for companies with smaller facilities or for those testing smaller products. Heavy-duty casters make moving the AST-18 into and throughout the facility easier.
The AST-18’s control instrumentation has been designed specifically for extreme change rate chambers and repetitive shock vibration systems. The PC-based programmer/controller offers versatility and a timesaving library of pre-programmed step stress and accelerated stress test profiles. Sophisticated reliability software packages are available for analysis of accumulated fatigue damage, transmissibility, and peak probability distribution.