Polymer Testing 19 (2000) 221–229 Experiment Design Evolutionary design of experiment for accelerated aging tests E.V. Bystritskaya, A.L. Pomerantsev, O.Ye. Rodionova * Polycert, Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Science, Kosygin str. 4, Moscow, Russia Received 18 July 1998; accepted 11 September 1998 Abstract The article is devoted to a special procedure that was developed by the authors and is used to design experiments for accelerated aging of rubber materials. The procedure involves correction of the final design with the help of short term preliminary tests and therefore it is called evolutionary design of experiment. The procedure was tested on seven rubber materials with different recipes and at different temperatures.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The accelerated aging tests (AT) are ordinarily used to investigate the properties of rubber compounds. AT means the aging at constant temperature(s) and measuring mechanic properties (such as elongation at break, tensile strength, etc.). This data set may be used for an estimation of rubber stability to thermal aging, for forecasting its behavior at less severe conditions and for comparison of different recipes and different additives. The quality of such analysis depends on the completeness of the data set. The completeness means that the necessary aging degree during AT has been achieved. Such duration of test supplies us with full information about the whole life-cycle of the compound up to its failure and gives a possibility to obtain proper estimation of rubber stability to thermal aging and to build the aging model for prediction of reliability of products. Usually this aging degree is determined by service conditions as some critical value * Corresponding author. Tel.: + 7-095-939-7483; fax: + 7-095-938-2156; e-mail: polycert@chph.ras.ru 0142-9418/99/$ - see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0142-9418(98)00077-4 This article is protected by the copyright law. You may copy and distribute this article for your personal use only. Other uses are only allowed with written permission by the copyright holder.