Testing philosophy

In an effort to understand hew the petroleum industry addresses the problem of fresh FOC catalyst evaluation, a survey of testing philosophies from 15 companies was conducted. The objective was to identify the merits of various steaming procedures as well as catalyst testing. The results of the survey shew that each laboratory has a unique testing program, with wide differences being practiced in both steam deactivation and Micro Activity (MAT)... 

Like the case for steaming, there are a variety of procedures used for MAT evaluations, none of which follow the current ASTM protocol in all respects. A summary of procedures used within the industry is presented in Table 3. One unique observation for MAT testing is that testing philosophies in Europe tend to be different than the US. In Europe, MAT testing is characterized by short injection times, less that 25 seconds, giving rise to higher space velocities, usually greater than 30 Hr-1. 

Describe the overall testing philosophy. The following issnes should be addressed ... 

The tests will be broken into Hardware Acceptance Tests (or Installation Qualification), System Acceptance Tests (or Operational Qualihcation), and Equipment Tests (or Performance Qualihca-tion). According to the size of the unit, all tests may be in one test document or there may be three separate Qualification documents. A test document will define the test philosophy and how the tests should be run. Each test will have a tide, a reason for the test, an oudine of any test equipment required, a description of the test, data to be recorded, and the test acceptance criteria. Calibrated test equipment must be supported with cahbration certificates. 

A validation plan should be developed that describes the purpose of the system including subsystems, responsible persons, test philosophy and a schedule for testing. 

Many consortia and publications have proposed a number of standard drives to evaluate battery performance. Schedules such as the Federal Urban Drive Schedule (FUDS), the Highway Fuel Economy Test (HWFET), and the Dynamic Stress Test (DST) are used as yardsticks of performance on a comparative basis. As metrics for fuel economy or other corporate standards, they may be appropriate but these should not generally be used as the real-world test of battery performance. Where performance is to be measured, it is recommended here that a Kochis Stress Test (KST) be used, which is a test philosophy that states that the maximum loads (charge and discharge) that will be used in the vehicle should be used to establish performance traits. This implies two points (i) the test should be demonstrated and calibrated in a vehicle that is the intended application (ii) if vehicle calibrations are changed, the effect on battery performance must be re-evaluated. 

An interesting survey was conducted by Engelhard a few years back of 15 companies and their testing philosophies. The conclusion drawn was that the choice of steaming procedure and MAT procedure, and what combination of them is chosen, will affect the observed ranking of catalyst performance. Furthermore, if you want to realistically assess catalysts, the steaming conditions as well as the MAT conditions should be related to commercial experience. 

Once the technology and architecture have been chosen, the designers review the periodic test philosophy constraints provided in the SRS. Given that safety instrumented systems will, hopefully, not be called on to activate, they must be completely inspected and tested at specified time... 

The need and use of product and material testing as part of the design process is covered. The relationship between the level of risk involved in the product use and the testing philosophy is explored so... 

The most popular ultrasonic nondestructive testing application has been associated with thickness measurement of a test object and defect location within the particular test object. Most of the applications to date have been associated with the testing of homogeneous isotropic materials. Recent work has extended the basic ultrasonic test philosophy to the field of composite materials and adhesive bonding inspection. Unfortunately, many difficulties occur because of the inhomogeneous and anisotropic characteristic of a composite material. This section includes a review of the physical principles associated with ultrasonic testing and the particular items that must receive special attention when inspecting composite materials or adhesively bonded sections of a structure. 

Part of the testing philosophy involves whether the test is intended to reproduce a certain environment accurately or whether it is more advisable to use a corrosive environment that represents a worst-case situation. In either case, the corrosion investigator must do everything possible to make the test reproducible by exercising explicit control over environmental factors such as concentration of reactants and contaminants, solution pH, temperature, aeration, velocity, impingement, and bacteriological effects [19]. 

The current testing philosophy appears to be moving in the direction of applying predictive short-term tests in the early planning stages of chemical development and using in vivo tests only where the situation warrants. Many... 

Moorehead, E.L., Margolis, M.J. and McLean, J.B., "FCC Catalyst Evaluation A Comparative Study of Testing Philosophies", Paper Presented at the Symposium on Preparation and Characterization of Catalysts before the Division of Petroleum Chemistry, Inc., American Chemical Society Meeting, Los Angeles, September 25-30 (1988). 

Finally, the previous sections have discussed the methodology used to perform finite element prediction of the fatigue life of Sn-Ag-Cu solder joints in an accelerated test environment. The determination of the acceleration factor between accelerated test and product environments is an equally important component of the accelerated testing philosophy. For traditional high-lead solder interconnects, this has been performed with the Norris-Landzberg equation. 

It is important to design in the testing facilities from the start and to do this we need to define the testing philosophy for each function. 

Maintenance and testing philosophy consistent with plant personnel capability/experience Operator/maintenance interface based on existing plant criteria Cost and schedule per project estimates and timing respectively Use of BPCS for application software diversity (shadowing)... 

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