Understanding NASA Outgassing Standards for High-Stress Applications

What is NASA Outgassing?

Outgassing is the measure of the level of residual low molecular weight species (including water if the material is not conditioned in a low moisture environment prior to testing) that can be evolved at high temperatures. NASA outgassing has a specific set of standards to meet demanding applications.

What are NASA Outgassing Standards?

NASA has created specific outgassing standards for materials for screening purposes low outgassing applications. NASA standard focus on Total Mass Loss (TML) and Collected Volatile Condensable Materials (CVCM). To pass NASA outgassing standards, materials cannot have a TML of >1.0% and a CVCM of >0.1%.

To find out about how testing is performed, visit our post detailing NASA outgas testing at http://ep.local/nasa-outgassing-requirements/

Why can outgassing be an issue?

For most adhesive and bonding applications outgassing is not an issue. This is generally because conditions are never so severe that excessive outgassing occurs or that the sensitivity to outgassing is extrement. When either of those two occur, outgassing of an adhesive can be a major problem and can lead to major failures.

Many applications usually have severe conditions (extreme temperatures, high to low pressure, chemical exposure). Many  applications also are very sensitive to even small amounts of outgassing. An example are navigational instruments on aircrafts or weaponry where outgassing can affect the performance of the instrument. If parts on the instrument or nearby equipment release outgassed material and condense onto the precision instrument performance can be dramatically altered.

Many optical applications where outgassing can cause fogging on highly sensitive parts is also prone to need low outgassing materials. Visit NASA outgassing website at https://outgassing.nasa.gov/ for more information on materials

Below are newly tested products from Epoxyset for NASA Outgassing