Performance Curve
Determine the characteristic thermal footprint of a passive shipper system:
its performance curve.
The performance curve characterizes the thermal performance of a particular combination of insulated shipping system and temperature-sensitive payload. It provides a lane-independent performance benchmark to compare different packouts, configurations, and systems on the market.
Classically, performance curves have been determined experimentally in climate chamber tests, but that is a very time-consuming and expensive process. A single performance curve, such as the one shown in the example figure below, takes at least 3 months experimental time in a climate chamber. In contrast, determining such a curve using software simulation, is a matter of a few hours.
If a single component of the system is exchanged, the performance curve has to be determined all over. For example, if a different payload is used, or the cold-pack precondition is changed from -5°C to -10°C, the performance curve has to be determined again. This makes the determination of performance curves for various configurations and variants by experiment practically not feasible. Using a software driven-approach to determine the performance curve is easy, fast, and affordable, even for a large number of variants.
