Abstract
Over the past six year, RILEM TC 139-DBS has been developing a RILEM Technical Recommendation (RTR) for a durability test method for curtain wall joint sealants. As the committee started to converge towards the final test method, the importance of evaluating the behaviour of a set of sealants under comparative conditions became apparent in order to validate the proposed durability test method. This paper provides a summary of the results obtained with the procedure described in the April 1999 draft. The study shows that the test method is able to differentiate between products with regard to their resistance to accelerated ageing and mechanical cycling. The type of failure and the changes in surface appearance obseved during the test regime are similar to those observed in actual service conditions. Sealant degradation resulting from the durability cycles was slower than had been anticipated for most sealant systems. The dynamic conditioning procedure (movement during cure) reduced joint durability for some of the tested products, but increased it for others. The fatigue cycling clearly accelerated sealant degradation.
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