Explore Our Reliability Lab: Custom Testing for Fluidic Systems

Key Takeaways:

• Fluid Metering’s application lab for pump validation and accelerated life testing helps mechanical and systems engineers reduce development cycles by offloading feasibility, compatibility, and aging simulations.
• Engineers designing OEM fluidic systems for regulated environments benefit from real-time failure detection, environmental simulation, and precision instrumentation—supporting MTTF estimates and regulatory documentation.
• For teams seeking custom pump testing and rapid prototyping, Fluid Metering offers turnkey validation services, 3D printing for fitment parts, and expert troubleshooting to keep projects on track and within spec.

Fast-Track OEM Projects: Pump Validation and Testing for Engineers.

As mechanical and systems engineers, you're often leading new product development at OEMs, constantly challenged to optimize design cycles while ensuring performance and reliability in real-world conditions. Product testing and validation, especially for critical components like pumps, is essential, but it can also become a significant resource bottleneck.

Streamline Your Development with Our Application Lab Services

We understand the pressures of product releases and regulatory demands. That's why our application lab is designed to offload your pump testing and validation workload, freeing your core team to concentrate on design iteration, simulation, and integration. Whether you need early-phase feasibility data or full-scale life cycle validation, we offer the technical infrastructure and expertise to deliver actionable, trustworthy results.

By leveraging your supplier (us!) to conduct testing, you can significantly accelerate your development cycle through rapid iteration. Immediate access to our application lab means that if an issue is detected, corrective actions and a second round of prototypes can be developed and tested without delay, thanks to our close proximity to the manufacturing cell. Our 3D printers further streamline this process by enabling fast creation of custom components and fitment parts, ensuring physical compatibility before moving forward in production.

Fluid Metering Capabilities for Mechanical and Systems Engineers

We provide a comprehensive environment to validate pump and system robustness for your OEM product needs:

• Fluid Compatibility Testing: Our lab is equipped to handle a wide range of fluids, including high-risk crystallizing agents (like saline) that often challenge standard test setups.

• Environmental Simulation & Accelerated Aging: With two Thermotron® chambers, we can program a variety of temperature and humidity profiles, mirroring real-world or worst-case field conditions—including aggressive accelerated life cycle test plans.

• Precision Instrumentation:

  • Pressure transducers: 0–250 PSI, accuracy ±0.1 PSI

  • Flow meters: 0–600 mL/min, resolution ±0.001 mL/min

  • Programmable controllers: Run complex, custom test protocols for automated test cycles, step changes, or real-time failure detection.

  • Precision pressure regulators for accurate boundary condition control.

  • Pan balances: Sensitivity down to 0.00002 g for gravimetric loss/gain tracking.

• Advanced System Simulation:

  • We offer vibration testing to simulate real-world operational stresses.

  • With our auxiliary pump system, we can inject air bubbles into fluid lines to replicate and troubleshoot challenges associated with bubble ingress in your application.

  • Additionally, we can simulate backpressure scenarios and replicate water hammer effects.

Accelerated Life Cycle Testing: The Engineering Approach

Accelerated life testing (ALT) is a key methodology for mechanical and systems engineers, allowing you to predict long-term reliability without waiting for real-time field data. We leverage industry-standard models to deliver reliable estimates of mean time to failure (MTTF) and support robust design decisions.

• Temperature Acceleration — Arrhenius Model Elevated temperature can drastically expedite chemical and mechanical degradation processes. The acceleration factor (AFT) is predicted using the Arrhenius equation:

  
  

• Practically: Doubling the test temperature (in Kelvin) can often yield an order of magnitude increase in aging rate for many elastomers and plastics.

• Combined Temperature & Humidity — Peck’s Model For pumps and components handling aqueous or hygroscopic fluids, humidity is a critical aging factor. Peck’s Model integrates both variables:

• Using these models, test conditions can be set to replicate several years of field exposure in just weeks of lab time.

Why Partner with Us?

• Reduce development cycle times with turnkey, scalable validation testing.

• Leverage experienced technical staff for custom test design and rapid troubleshooting.

• Access test data, failure analyses, and engineering reports to support regulatory and customer documentation.

We're dedicated to supporting mechanical and systems engineers with the resources and expertise needed to keep your projects on-track and within spec. Let's discuss your next pump validation or accelerated testing challenge—and help you reclaim critical engineering time for innovation.