Environmental influence on materials and technical systems and its simulations.

Technical products are affected during their entire service life by a number of environmental influences. These originate from both man-made and natural sources. Such environmental influences include not only temperature, humidity and air pollution effects, but also those caused by mechanical shock and vibration, electromagnetic fields and biological attack by microorganism. They all act together, some independently and some synergistically, to influence material properties, as well as functionability, service life, quality and reliability of the technical system. It is therefore technically and economically important to design and assemble products in a manner that will withstand the expected environment and perform as designed. A helpful tool in qualifying a technical product to survive in its expected environment is the concept of test-tailoring. Reliable determination of cause-effect-relationships one can derive environmental test procedures, whereby meaningful service life predict ions may be made. Establishing such relationships, defining the environment, developing suitable test procedures, conducting laboratory evaluations and judging the results are the tasks of the environmental engineering specialist.