Physical test

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A physical test is a qualitative or quantitative procedure that consists of determination of one or more characteristics of a given product, process or service according to a specified procedure. [1] Often this is part of an experiment.

Contents

Physical testing is common in physics, engineering, and quality assurance.

Purposes

Physical testing might have a variety of purposes, such as:

Performance testing

Some physical testing is performance testing which covers a wide range of engineering or functional evaluations where a material, product, or system is not specified by detailed material or component specifications. Rather, emphasis is on the final measurable performance characteristics. Testing can be a qualitative or quantitative procedure. Many Acceptance testing protocols employ performance testing e.g. In the stress testing of a new design of chair.

Examples of performance testing

See also

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Datasheet Technical document summarizing performance and constraints of system components

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Engineering tolerance permissible limit or limits of variation in value or dimension

Engineering tolerance is the permissible limit or limits of variation in:

  1. a physical dimension;
  2. a measured value or physical property of a material, manufactured object, system, or service;
  3. other measured values ;
  4. in engineering and safety, a physical distance or space (tolerance), as in a truck (lorry), train or boat under a bridge as well as a train in a tunnel ;
  5. in mechanical engineering the space between a bolt and a nut or a hole, etc.

In chemistry, a chemical test is a qualitative or quantitative procedure designed to identify, quantify, or characterise a chemical compound or chemical group.

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A United States defense standard, often called a military standard, "MIL-STD", "MIL-SPEC", or (informally) "MilSpecs", is used to help achieve standardization objectives by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Environmental stress screening (ESS) refers to the process of exposing a newly manufactured or repaired product or component to stresses such as thermal cycling and vibration in order to force latent defects to manifest themselves by permanent or catastrophic failure during the screening process. The surviving population, upon completion of screening, can be assumed to have a higher reliability than a similar unscreened population.

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The Air Movement and Control Association International, Inc. (AMCA) is a long-established American trade body that sets standards for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) equipment. It is best known for its ratings in fan balance and vibration, aerodynamic performance, air density, speed and efficiency.

A test method is a method for a test in science or engineering, such as a physical test, chemical test, or statistical test. It is a definitive procedure that produces a test result. In order to ensure accurate and relevant test results, a test method should be "explicit, unambiguous, and experimentally feasible.", as well as effective and reproducible.

An independent test organization is an organization, person, or company that tests products, materials, software, etc. according to agreed requirements. The test organization can be affiliated with the government or universities or can be an independent testing laboratory. They are independent because they are not affiliated with the producer nor the user of the item being tested: no commercial bias is present. These "contract testing" facilities are sometimes called "third party" testing or evaluation facilities.

A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard.

A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task. It is usually a formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes, and practices. In contrast, a custom, convention, company product, corporate standard, and so forth that becomes generally accepted and dominant is often called a de facto standard.

MIL-PRF-38535 is a United States military specification that establishes the general performance and verification requirements of single die integrated circuit device type electronics. It is a performance-based specification document defining the general requirements, as well as the quality assurance and reliability requirements, for the manufacture of microelectronic or integrated circuits used in military applications and high-reliability microcircuit application programs.

British Approvals Service for Cables organization

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Acceptance sampling uses statistical sampling to determine whether to accept or reject a production lot of material. It has been a common quality control technique used in industry. It is usually done as products leaves the factory, or in some cases even within the factory. Most often a producer supplies a consumer a number of items and a decision to accept or reject the items is made by determining the number of defective items in a sample from the lot. The lot is accepted if the number of defects falls below where the acceptance number or otherwise the lot is rejected.

Package testing

Package testing or packaging testing involves the measurement of a characteristic or property involved with packaging. This includes packaging materials, packaging components, primary packages, shipping containers, and unit loads, as well as the associated processes.

Tensile testing Test procedure to determine mechanical properties of a specimen.

Tensile testing, also known as tension testing, is a fundamental materials science and engineering test in which a sample is subjected to a controlled tension until failure. Properties that are directly measured via a tensile test are ultimate tensile strength, breaking strength, maximum elongation and reduction in area. From these measurements the following properties can also be determined: Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, yield strength, and strain-hardening characteristics. Uniaxial tensile testing is the most commonly used for obtaining the mechanical characteristics of isotropic materials. Some materials use biaxial tensile testing. The main difference between these testing machines being how load is applied on the materials.

Analytical quality control, commonly shortened to AQC, refers to all those processes and procedures designed to ensure that the results of laboratory analysis are consistent, comparable, accurate and within specified limits of precision. Constituents submitted to the analytical laboratory must be accurately described to avoid faulty interpretations, approximations, or incorrect results. The qualitative and quantitative data generated from the laboratory can then be used for decision making. In the chemical sense, quantitative analysis refers to the measurement of the amount or concentration of an element or chemical compound in a matrix that differs from the element or compound. Fields such as industry, medicine, and law enforcement can make use of AQC.

References

  1. ASTM E 1301, Standard Guide for Proficiency Testing by Interlaboratory Comparisons