Acceleration Factor for Polymer Degradation by UV Light Exposure
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Bartosz, Curtis; Chen, Felix
- Source
- 2021 IEEE 23rd Electronics Packaging Technology Conference (EPTC) Electronics Packaging Technology Conference (EPTC), 2021 IEEE 23rd. :170-175 Dec, 2021
- Subject
- Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Photonics and Electrooptics
Power, Energy and Industry Applications
Degradation
Matched filters
Conferences
Life estimation
Market research
Solar radiation
Polymers
- Language
Polycarbonate (PC) is a widely used material in electronics enclosures. Consequently, in outdoor environments PC is often exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light from solar radiation. It is well documented that PC will photo-oxidize under solar radiation, which leads to yellowing and changes to material properties. This work seeks to establish a method to calculate an acceleration factor (AF) between samples aged both naturally in the field and artificially under high intensity lamps. Through spectral analysis of the lamps and knowledge of the photo-oxidation reaction, we can estimate the AF between test samples and field deployments. This will allow simulating UV exposure in materials within much shorter durations than could be achieved by simply aging materials outside in sunny locales as is frequently suggested.