Testing
We select and conduct tests that best suit your needs and those of your product, utilizing our wide range of equipment to ensure its quality and safety.
Objective. To know the causes of photocell failure and solve the problem.
Our customer is having problems with a plastic piece used in the photocells they install for their customer. These pieces are fracturing in a specific area, but they do not know why and there is no specific cause a priori. The objective is to know why this failure is occurring and also to propose alternative materials to improve the quality of this piece.
Solution. Factor analysis, FTIR, TGA and DSC characterization and accelerated aging tests.
The first step was to know where this piece was installed, under what conditions and also how it was being used by the end customer. With this important information, we were able to make an analysis of the external factors that could modify the properties of the material (such as temperature and ambient light, cleaners used, etc).
During the study we used a fractured photocell and a new one, in order to evaluate the properties and to know where the origin of this problem was.
As a second step, we worked on the selection and definition of the tests that could give us information about the problem. We selected FTIR, TGA and DSC as characterization techniques. Here we were already able to detect some differences, such as a signal indicating the oxidation of the photocells that had been used.
As a third step with the oxidation information, we designed several accelerated aging tests such as temperature, UV radiation, immersion in different chemical agents and impact. We studied what was causing the oxidation during actual use. These tests gave us the key, a component of the cleaners they normally used was causing the oxidation of the material, which eventually resulted in its breakage.
The fourth and final step we took was to propose and test the solution. We proposed several alternative materials and performed the same aging tests. We found an alternative material that not only in properties, but also in cost, fit our customer’s application.
