MIL-STD-810, U.S. Department of Defense Test Method Standard, Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests, is a United States Military Standard that emphasizes tailoring an equipment's environmental design and test limits to the conditions that it will experience throughout its service life, and establishing chamber test methods that replicate the effects of environments on the equipment rather than imitating the environments themselves. Although prepared specifically for U.S. military applications, the standard is often applied for commercial products as well.
The standard's guidance and test methods are intended to: define environmental stress sequences, durations, and levels of equipment life cycles; be used to develop analysis and test criteria tailored to the equipment and its environmental life cycle; evaluate equipment's performance when exposed to a life cycle of environmental stresses identify deficiencies, shortcomings, and defects in equipment design, materials, manufacturing processes, packaging techniques, and maintenance methods; and demonstrate compliance with contractual requirements.
The document revision as of 2019 is U.S. MIL-STD-810H. It supersedes MIL-STD-810G, Change Notice 1 which was issued in 2014.
Cognizant agency
MIL-STD-810 is maintained by a Tri-Service partnership that includes the United States Air Force, Army, and Navy.<ref>{ { cite journal |year=2005 |title=Treatise Helps Users Interpret and Apply MIL-STD-810 — A Test Method Standard |journal=Journal of the IEST |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=147–151 |publisher=Institute of Environmental Sciences & Technology |url=http://iest.metapress.com/content/k8gw17538jl71314/fulltext.pdf |accessdate=27 Jun 2012|doi= 10.17764/jiet.48.1.k8gw17538jl71314}}</ref> The U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, or ATEC, serves as Lead Standardization Activity / Preparing Activity, and is chartered under the Defense Standardization Program (DSP) with maintaining the functional expertise and serving as the DoD-wide technical focal point for the standard. The Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology is the Administrator for WG-DTE043: MIL-STD-810, the Working Group that updates this constantly evolving standard.
Scope and purpose of MIL-STD-810
MIL-STD-810 addresses a broad range of environmental conditions that include: low pressure for altitude testing; exposure to high and low temperatures plus temperature shock (both operating and in storage); rain (including wind blown and freezing rain); humidity, fungus, salt fog for rust testing; sand and dust exposure; explosive atmosphere; leakage; acceleration; shock and transport shock; gunfire vibration; and random vibration. The standard describes environmental management and engineering processes that can be of enormous value to generate confidence in the environmental worthiness and overall durability of a system design. The standard contains military acquisition program planning and engineering direction to consider the influences that environmental stresses have on equipment throughout all phases of its service life. The document does not impose design or test specifications. Rather, it describes the environmental tailoring process that results in realistic materiel designs and test methods based on materiel system performance requirements.
Finally, there are limitations inherent in laboratory testing that make it imperative to use proper engineering judgment to extrapolate laboratory results to results that may be obtained under actual service conditions. In many cases, real-world environmental stresses (singularly or in combination) cannot be duplicated in test laboratories. Therefore, users should not assume that an item that passes laboratory testing also will pass field/fleet verification tests.
History and evolution of MIL-STD-810
In 1945, the Army Air Force (AAF) released the first specification providing a formal methodology for testing equipment under simulated environmental conditions. That document, entitled AAF Specification 41065, Equipment - General Specification for Environmental Test of, is the direct ancestor of MIL-STD-810. In 1965, the USAF released a technical report with data and information on the origination and development of natural and induced environmental tests intended for aerospace and ground equipment. By using that document, the design engineer obtained a clearer understanding of the interpretation, application, and relationship of environmental testing to military equipment and materiel.