Saudi Arabian Oil Company

Timothy Lynn Ely

Rashid Mohammad Al-Othman

Douglas Patrick Mitchell

Abdul Rahman

An apparatus and method are provided for measuring the physical strength and ability of a solid sample, to resist breakdown into fines after repeated cycles of hydration and regeneration of temperatures in excess of 100&deg; C. The test samples are evaluated using an accelerated degradation apparatus that subjects the sample to a predetermined number of timed cycles of wetting/drying under heat and vacuum, and the weight-percent of any fines produced by the degradation of the sample are measured and recorded after a prescribed number of cycles. Specific values are used for predicting potential useful service life, in years of samples from different commercial manufacturers of the same class of product; the resulting data can be used by manufacturers for more effective quality control of production batches.

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Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia

Timothy Lynn Ely