Insights into accelerated aging of SSL luminaires

Journal Article · Mon Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2025295· OSTI ID:1212866

Davis, J. Lynn ^[1]; Lamvik, Michael ^[1]; Bittle, James ^[1]; Shepherd, Sarah ^[1]; Yaga, Robert ^[1]; Baldasaro, Nick ^[1]; Solano, Eric ^[1]; Bobashev, Georgiy ^[1]

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1. RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC (United States)

Although solid-state lighting (SSL) products are often intended to have product lifetimes of 15 years or more, the rapid change in technology has created a need for accelerated life tests (ALTs) that can be performed in the span of several months. A critical element of interpreting results from any systems-level ALT is understanding of the impact of the test environment on each component. Because of its ubiquity in electronics, the use of temperature-humidity environments as potential ALTs for SSL luminaires was investigated. Results from testing of populations of three commercial 6” downlights in environments of 85oC and 85% relative humidity (RH) and 75oC and 75% RH are reported. These test environments were found to accelerate lumen depreciation of the entire luminaire optical system, including LEDs, lenses, and reflectors. The effects of aging were found to depend strongly on both the optical materials that were used and the design of the luminaire; this shows that the lumen maintenance behavior of SSL luminaires must be addressed at the optical systems level. Temperature-Humidity ALTs can be a useful test in understand lumainaire depreciation provided that proper consideration is given to the different aging rates of various materials. Since the impact of the temperature-humidity environment varies among components of the optical system, uniform aging of all system components in a single test is difficult to achieve.

• Research Organization: RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
• Grant/Contract Number: EE0005124
• OSTI ID: 1212866
• Journal Information: Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol. 8835; ISSN 0277-786X
• Publisher: SPIE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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