In the June issue of LEDs Magazine, Dr. Nadarajah Narendran, Director of Research at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, discusses LRC research focused on LED system reliability in the article, "Industry test standards must evolve to ensure accurate LED system life estimates."

(Image: Lighting Research Center)

Some LED products available on the commercial market can fail much sooner in some applications than manufacturers' lamp life specifications would suggest. The LRC studies found that the current industry practice for rating lamp life does not capture the different failure modes that exist when LED products are used in real-world applications. The results provide encouragement that a test procedure can be developed to accurately predict LED system life within a 3000-hour testing period.  

In the same issue, lighting standards expert Dr. Jianzhong Jiao details activity by the LRC ASSIST program, IEC, and IES defining LED lamp and luminaire testing standards that can enable fair comparisons by lighting designers, specifiers, and end users in the article, "Work continues on three LED lighting reliability standards."