Accelerated Weathering and Corrosion Testing

Evaluating a coating’s resistance to an environment prior to full-scale installation can help avoid costly premature failure and product contamination. While this testing can be performed by mounting panels containing candidate coating systems in the actual service environment, it can take years to generate discriminating data. As part of KTA’s Physical Testing Laboratory, our chemists and chemical technicians perform indoor accelerated weathering testing on coated test panels that simulate the coating’s ability to “weather” outdoor conditions/environments over a period of time.

Accelerated weathering and cyclic corrosion testing capabilities include exposure to simulated solar radiation (ultraviolet light), corrosive environments, and extreme temperature and humidity conditions. Our seven ultraviolet light chambers can be equipped with a variety of lamps producing various spectra of UV radiation including UVA340, UVB313, FS40, and others. Three salt fog chambers and three cyclic salt fog chambers are used to simulate marine, caustic, or acidic conditions. Four controlled temperature and humidity chambers and four freezers can be used for thermal cycling and extreme condition exposure. Commonly performed exposure regimes include (but are not limited to) ASTM B 117, ASTM D 5894, ASTM D 4587, ASTM D 4585, ASTM D 2247, ASTM D 6944, ASTM G 85, GM9540P, SAE J2334, CCT-1, and CCT-4.

KTA also performs accelerated exposures to evaluate a coating’s resistance to cathodic disbondment (ASTM G 8 and G 42), as well as resistance to immersion in a variety of media using immersion vessels or Atlas Cells, and Corrocels (ASTM C 868/NACE TM01-74) for one-sided testing to evaluate the cold wall effect on a lining system. Should unique conditions require a process that is unlike any published standard, KTA can custom design a testing regime to address specific conditions.

KTA has demonstrated such services on the following representative projects: