Durability testing procedure for washing machines – approach and first learnings

Panel: 7. Appliances, products, lighting and ICT

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Rainer Stamminger, University of Bonn - Section Household and Appliance Technology, Germany
Mathieux Fabrice, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Directorate D - Sustainable Resources, Italy
Paolo Tecchio, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Directorate D - Sustainable Resources, Italy
Fulvio Ardente, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Directorate D - Sustainable Resources, Italy
Phoebe Niestrath

Abstract

From environmental perspective, long-life products normally perform better in the majority of the environmental impact categories, if not all, than short-life products. A detailed investigation of the life-time of washing machines in Germany has shown a clear correlation of the actual achieved life-time of washing machines with the frequency of use, supporting the assumption that the actual operation of the appliance is the major factor which limits the life-time. But, performing a real life time test of a washing machine would take almost one year before a result could be expected, which is not acceptable for any regulatory issue concerning products to be put on the market. An accelerated durability test based on a series of 500 spinning cycles is hence proposed to mimic the most relevant mechanical stresses to a washing machine. It was therefore the task of this research to prove that such an experimental concept can deliver useful information to assess the durability of a given washing machine. Two washing machines from different manufacturers were selected for this first test. A rubber plate was used to mimic a constant unbalance mass. The result shows that the attempt to mimic the stress induced on a washing machine by doing a high number of pure spinning cycles with a fixed unbalance load does not allow having equal and fair testing conditions for all kind of washing machines: this is in particular due to different control procedures for unbalance defined by each manufacturer. Such kind of testing protocol could even be counter-productive, as it would pretend to replicate durability, while real performance as experienced by the consumer may be deteriorated already after some cycles. However, interesting perspectives of this work concern the possibility to verify that performances (in particular spinning performances) of the washing machines are maintained after going through the accelerated durability test.