The service life of a polymer is affected by environmental parameters such as humidity, oxygen, UV irradiation, Ozone among others. In case of exposure to aggressive chemicals the service life is usually reduced a lot. In order to estimate the service life polymer it is common to perform some short term tests in order to achieve information on the ageing process useful to predict the service life under use.

A good understanding of the ageing mechanisms is important in order to design an ageing test that accelerates the ageing process without changing it. Several tools based on measuring the kinetics of the ageing process exist.