Environmental Testing
Vipac houses a comprehensive range of mechanical and climatic testing equipment, enabling us to subject your products to almost any service conditions the natural environment may throw at them. We’re accredited for ISO 17025 by NATA and A2LA, and offer confidential testing services to a wide range of globally recognised standards including MIL-STD 810, MIL-STD 202, MIL-STD 167, DEF STAN 00-035, IEC 60068, IEC 61373, ISO 16750, EN 50125, EN 50155, AS/IEC 60529, and ISTA. We’re also able to provide testing services to your own internal specifications, or work with you to develop a customised scope and test plan.
As well as testing to industry and regulatory standards, our experience and capabilities are employed by clients to develop testing regimes as part of their product development cycle.
To view all the testing services and standards that Vipac tests to, click here for our Melbourne lab, and here for our Sydney lab.
Please see below for some of our environmental testing services in detail:
Vibration, Shock and Drop Testing (read more...)
Electrodynamic shakers:
- Load range: From 8kN to 60kN
- Maximum displacement: 63mm peak-to-peak
- Our range of vibration controllers enable us to carry out all types of vibration tests, including:
- Sine vibration
- Random vibration
- Classical shock
- Sine-on-random (SOR)
- Random-on-random (ROR)
- Shock response spectra (SRS)
- Resonance track & dwell.
Hydraulic shakers:
- Load range: up to 60kN
- Payload capacity: > 2000kg
- Displacement: 150mm peak-to-peak
Shock, Impact and Bump Testing:
- Vertical drop
- 15° incline shock machine
- 1m² payload area shock machine
- Loose load vibration table
- Fixed displacement vibration machine
- Lightweight Shock Machine (Test Standard MIL-STD 901D)
- Drop | Bounce Testing for packaging and transport of equipment
Temperature and Humidity Testing (read more...)
Vipac has a large number of climatic chambers throughout laboratories in Melbourne and Sydney:
- Temperature range: -70°C to +180°C
- Ramp rates: Up to 6°C/min
- Relative humidity: 0 to 99%RH
- Small-scale to large walk-in test chambers
Given this wide range, there are very few climatic conditions our test chambers cannot simulate.
Water and Dust Ingress Protection Testing (read more...)
IP testing to IEC 60529 Ingress Protection is used to:
- Determine equipment and enclosures’ ability to resist the ingress of foreign matter (solid and liquid)
- Ensure that human exposure to dangerous parts is prevented.
Read more about our IP Testing capabilities in our Electrical Safety Testing services offering.
Sand and Dust Testing (read more...)
Maximum size: 250 x 250 x 250mm.
Assessing the ability of materials to be stored and operated without degrading their performance, reliability and maintainability due to abrasion or clogging of larger, sharp-edged particles.
Blowing Sand & Dust Testing is one of the available test methods covered by MIL-STD-810G.
Salt Corrosion and Fog Testing (read more...)
Our salt spray chambers carry out a range of salt fog tests, including:
- MIL-STD 810 Method 509 Salt Fog
- ASTM B117 Salt Fog
- IEC 60068.2.11 Salt Mist
This testing is ideal for:
- Marine equipment
- Comparative testing
- Material evaluation
- Coatings/surface finishing procedures on hardware.
Altitude Testing (read more...)
Involves placing equipment in a chamber and lowering the pressure to simulate
altitude, helping:
- Aero and space industries
- The transportation sector – many testing protocols require verification of operation and performance after airfreight, which can be carried out in our barometric test chambers.
Tensile and Compression Load Testing (read more...)
Load range: up to 100kN (10 tonne)
Using a controlled loading rate allows us to assess the performance of:
- Roofing products
- Load bearing brackets
- Machinery holding equipment.
Fatigue and Load Testing / Custom Test Rig Design (read more...)
Using hydraulic, pneumatic and electric hardware along with a range of control systems and instrumentation, we can design, manufacture and commission custom test rigs to perform any fatigue, strength or endurance testing requirements.
ADR Testing (including Towbar Testing)
Packaging testing (read more...)
Vipac provides package testing service to assess the durability and strength of packaging and products during transport.
Because we’re a member of the International Safe Transit Association, ISTA testing (including Amazon package testing, also known as ISTA 6-Amazon.com testing) is available through Vipac. We also test to IEC, ISO 11607 and ASTM D4169 standards, or to company-specific norms, in addition to ISTA packaging standards.
Vipac’s engineers replicate environmental influences normally at play during transit and storage, under controlled settings, in our state-of-the-art labs to test. Our packaging-testing methods include:
- Climate conditioning
- Drop and shock testing
- Compressive resistance testing
- Concentrated impact testing
- Low pressure (high altitude) testing
- Random vibration testing
- Loose-load vibration testing
Our team can also design and build new test equipment if a client requires a specific method to be used, or a specific test to be conducted.
Other services Vipac offers that are related to Environmental Testing:
- We can conduct Electrical Safety and Ingress Protection (IP) Testing.
- We can conduct Performance Testing on a range of consumer appliances, HVAC components, pumps and other machinery.
- We can conduct on-site dynamics/vibration investigations into your rotating machinery, as part of our Acoustics and Vibration consulting services.