The IEC 60216 standard, published by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), consists of the following sections under the main title of "Electrical insulating materials - Thermal endurance properties":
The IEC 60216-1 standard describes the general aging conditions and procedures used to achieve thermal resistance properties and provides guidance on the use of detailed instructions and guidelines in other sections of the standard. Although initially developed for use with electrical insulation materials and simple combinations thereof, the procedures are now considered more generally applicable and are widely used in the evaluation of materials not intended for use as electrical insulation. For the applicable application of the standard, there should be no transitions, in particular no first-order transitions, within the temperature range under consideration.
The IEC 60216-2 standard provides guidance for the selection of test criteria for determining thermal endurance characteristics. It does contain a list of current published procedures, however, which is not exhaustive.
The IEC 60216-3 standard describes the calculation procedures used to derive thermal endurance characteristics from experimental data obtained in accordance with IEC 60216-1 and IEC 60216-2 standards using fixed aging temperatures and variable aging times. Experimental data can be obtained using non-destructive, destructive or proof tests. Data from non-destructive or proof tests may be incomplete because it is possible that the measurement of times to reach the endpoint was terminated at some point after the median time but before all samples reached the endpoint. Procedures are illustrated with worked examples and appropriate computer programs are suggested to facilitate calculations. A new computer program has been included in the last update of this standard and Annex E has been completely overhauled.
Standard IEC 60216-4-1 describes the minimum requirements for the thermal endurance assessment of electrical insulation for ventilated and electrically heated single-chamber furnaces with or without forced gas circulation. This standard covers ovens designed to operate in all or part of the ambient temperature range between 20 degrees and 500 degrees. Acceptance tests and in-service monitoring tests are offered for these aging furnaces.
The IEC 60216-4-2 standard describes minimum performance requirements for ventilated and electrically heated precision furnaces for thermal endurance assessment of electrical insulating materials and other suitable applications. It covers furnaces designed to operate in all or part of the temperature range of 20 degrees to 300 degrees room temperature. Two possible methods are described in this standard to achieve the required performance:
The IEC 60216-4-3 standard describes minimum requirements for ventilated and heated multi-chamber furnaces used for thermal endurance assessment of electrical insulation and any other suitable thermal conditioning application for which the use of single-chamber furnaces is unsuitable. This standard covers ovens designed to operate in all or part of the ambient temperature range from 20 degrees to 500 degrees. Acceptance tests and in-service monitoring tests are offered for both unloaded and loaded multi-chamber furnaces and conditions of use.
The IEC 60216-5 standard describes the test and calculation procedures to be used to derive the relative thermal endurance index of a material from the experimental data obtained in accordance with IEC 60216-1 and IEC 60216-2 standards. The calculation procedures are complementary to the procedures described in the IEC 60216-3 standard. Guidance is also given for the assessment of thermal aging without extrapolation after a single fixed time and temperature. Experimental data can in principle be obtained using destructive, nondestructive or proof tests, but destructive tests are much more widely used.
The IEC 60216-6 standard describes experimental and computational procedures for deriving the thermal endurance properties, temperature index and relative thermal endurance index of a material using the fixed time frame method. In this protocol, aging is performed for a small number of fixed times using an appropriate number of aging temperatures, with the properties of the samples being measured at the end of the respective time interval. This differs from the procedure described in the IEC 60216-1 standard, where aging is carried out at a small number of constant temperatures, where the property measurement takes place after aging times due to the progression of aging. Diagnostic tests used in the fixed time frame method are limited to destructive tests. The method has not been applied to non-destructive or proof testing procedures. This standard has been withdrawn.
The IEC TS 60216-7-1 standard describes the procedure for evaluating the thermal durability of electrical insulating materials based on thermal analysis methods and a conventional life test method for the evaluation of the activation energy of the thermal decomposition reaction. The test method provides a life point on the thermal endurance graph. The purpose of the test procedure is to estimate the relative temperature index.
The IEC TS 60216-7-2 standard is to validate the procedures described in the IEC TS 60216-60216-7 standard in providing a temperature index similar to conventional methods used in other parts of the IEC 1 standard series. These cyclic test results do not provide statistical analysis for precision.
The IEC 60216-8 standard describes general aging conditions and simplified procedures to be used to obtain the thermal endurance characteristics indicated by the temperature index, relative temperature index and half-range. The procedures specify principles for evaluating the thermal endurance properties of materials exposed to high temperatures for extended periods of time. In the application of this standard, a practically linear relationship is assumed between the logarithm of the time required to cause a predetermined property change and the inverse of the corresponding absolute temperature. For valid application of the standard, no transition, particularly no first-order transition, should occur in the temperature range under consideration.
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