This test method standard is approved for use by all Departments and Agencies of the Department of Defense (DoD). Although prepared specifically for DoD applications, this standard may be tailored for commercial applications as well. MIL-STD-810F is a significant revision of MIL-STD-810E. Much of the standard is rewritten completely to provide clearer direction. The primary emphases are still the same -- tailoring a materiel item's environmental design and test limits to the conditions that the specific materiel will experience throughout its service life, and establishing chamber test methods that replicate the effects of environments on materiel rather than imitating the environments themselves. However, the "F" revision has been expanded significantly up front to explain how to implement the environmental tailoring process throughout the materiel acquisition cycle.

This revision recognizes that the environmental design and test tailoring process has expanded to involve a wide range of managerial and technical interests. Accordingly, this revision orients environmental design and test direction toward three basic types of users who have distinctly different, although closely associated, interests: program managers who, among other responsibilities, ensure proposed concepts and systems are valid and functional in intended operational environments; environmental engineering specialists (EES), who enter the acquisition process early to assist combat and materiel developer tailoring efforts by preparing life cycle environmental profiles and drafting tailored design criteria and test programs, and the design, test, and evaluation community, whose analysts, engineers, and facility operators use tailored designs and tests to meet user needs.

a. Accelerated test. A test designed to shorten the controlled environmental test time with respect to the service use time by increasing the frequency of occurrence, amplitude, duration, or any combination of these of environmental stresses that would be expected to occur during service use.

b. Aggravated test. A test in which one or more conditions are set at a more stressful level than the materiel will encounter during service use.

c. Ambient environment. The conditions, either outdoor or confined (e.g., temperature and humidity), that characterize the air or other medium that surrounds materiel.

d. Climatic categories. Specific types of world climates which materiel is designed to withstand during operation, storage, and transit.

e. Combat developer. Military specialist concerned with training, doctrine, and materiel needs documentation.

f. Critical threshold value. The level of an environment forcing function that degrades the capability of materiel significantly or requires degradation prevention measures be taken.

g. Cumulative effects. The collective consequences of environmental stresses during the life cycle of materiel.

h. Engineering judgment. Expert opinion based on engineering education and experience, especially in the area in which the judgment is made.

i. Environmental analysis. Technical activity covering an analytical description of the effects that various environments have on materiel, subsystems, and component effectiveness.

j. Environmental conditions. (See Forcing function (environment).)

k. Environmental engineering. The discipline of applying engineering practices to the effects that various environments have on materiel effectiveness.

l. Environmental engineering specialist (EES). A person or group of people skilled in one or more environmental engineering areas. Areas include, but are not necessarily limited to: natural and induced environments and their effects on materiel; expertise in measuring and analyzing in-service environmental conditions; formulating environmental test criteria; determining when environmental laboratory tests are appropriate/valid substitutes for natural in-service environmental tests; and evaluating the effects of specific environments on materiel.

m. Environmental test. A structured procedure to help determine the effects of natural or induced environments on materiel.

n. Environmental Worthiness. The capability of materiel, subsystem, or component to perform its full array of intended functions in intended environments.

o. Equipment. For purposes of this standard, equipment includes the instrumentation, facilities, and support apparatus used to conduct or monitor tests. This does not include the test item itself or the materiel of which the test item is a sample or a part.

p. Forcing function (environment). A natural or induced physical environmental stress condition on materiel that may affect its ability to function as intended or to withstand transit or storage during its service life. (Also referred to as an environmental condition or an environmental stress.)

q. Hermetic seal. A permanent, air-tight seal.

r. Induced environment. An environmental condition that is predominantly man-made or generated by the materiel platform. Also, refers to any condition internal to materiel that results from the combination of natural environmental forcing functions and the physical/chemical characteristics of the materiel itself.

s. In-service use. The anticipated use of materiel during its intended service use life.

t. Integrated Product Team (IPT). A group of individuals from different professional disciplines and organizations (government and industry) who work together on a product from concept through production stages. Individuals who cover a discipline may change from stage to stage, but the discipline is covered, and the information pertinent to that discipline is passed to the succeeding team member(s) in that discipline.

u. Life Cycle Environmental Profile (LCEP). Design and test decision baseline document outlining real-world, platform-specific, environmental conditions that a specific materiel system or component will experience during service-related events (e.g., transportation, storage, operational deployment/use) from its release from manufacturing to the end of its useful life.

v. Life cycle profile. A time history of events and conditions associated with materiel from its release from manufacturing to its removal from service, including demilitarization. The life cycle should include the various phases materiel will encounter in its life, such as: packaging, handling, shipping, and storage prior to use; mission profiles while in use; phases between missions such as stand-by or storage, transfer to and from repair sites and alternate locations; and geographical locations of expected deployment.

w. Materiel. A commodity or set of commodities. A generic class of hardware designed to perform a specific function.

x. Materiel developer. An agency or group of individuals involved in designing, testing, or evaluating materiel to meet developer performance requirements.

y. Mission profile. That portion of the life cycle profile associated with a specific operational mission.

z. Operational worthiness. The capability of materiel, a subsystem, or component to perform its full array of intended functions.

aa. Parameter. Any quantity that represents a descriptive generalization of a certain characteristic physical property of a system that has a certain value at a particular time.

bb. Parameter level. The value of a physical property that documents the degree, extent, or level at which a parameter exists at a given location at a given point in time, or the value to which a variable test control is set (see test level).

cc. Platform. Any vehicle, surface, or medium that carries the materiel. For example, an aircraft is the carrying platform for installed avionics items or transported or externally mounted stores. The land is the platform for a ground radar set, for example, and a person for a man-portable radio.

dd. Platform environment. The environmental conditions materiel experiences as a result of being attached to or loaded onto a platform. The platform environment is influenced by forcing functions induced or modified by the platform and any platform environmental control systems.

ee. Program manager. The (Government) official who is in charge of the acquisition process for the materiel.

ff. Service life. Period of time from the release of materiel from the manufacturer through retirement and final disposition.

gg. Tailoring. The process of choosing design characteristics/tolerances and test environments, methods, procedures, sequences and conditions, and altering critical design and test values, conditions of failure, etc., to take into account the effects of the particular environmental forcing functions to which materiel normally would be subjected during its life cycle. The tailoring process also includes preparing or reviewing engineering task, planning, test, and evaluation documents to help ensure realistic weather, climate, and other physical environmental conditions are given proper consideration throughout the acquisition cycle.

hh. Test item. Specific materiel, a subsystem, or component being tested, including its container and packaging materials, that is representative of the materiel being developed. A representative sample of materiel that is used for test purposes.

ii. Test level. The value at which a test condition is set or recorded. (Also, see parameter level.)

jj. Test method. The criteria and procedures used to formulate an environmental test.

kk. Test plan. A document that may include test procedures and test levels, failure criteria, test schedules, and operational and storage requirements.

ll. Test procedure. A sequence of actions that prescribes the exposure of a test item to a particular environmental forcing function or combination of environmental forcing functions, as well as inspections, possible operational checks, etc.

mm. Virtual proving ground. A developing suite of tools, techniques, and procedures by which the tester will verify, validate, test, and evaluate systems, simulators, and models by stimulating them with complex synthetic environments. These simulation-based tests should supplement and be validated by live testing.