Improvement of Accelerated Weathering Test through Physicochemical Analysis for Polymeric Materials in Building Construction

Abstract

In civil engineering, the long-term service life of buildings as environmental measures is one of important performances being comparable to structure and fire safety, and it is demanded to improve durability of materials in building construction. This improvement of material durability is highly associating with lifetime of building, and so as not to reach the limit state of building components. It is imperative to determine a specific means and method in order to identify the surrounding environment on the deteriorating effect for building components and materials, as well as predicting a process of degradation phenomena and the limit state of buildings. As part of building materials, polymeric materials become widespread in civil engineering because of taking advantage of excellent property, such as lightweight, high corrosion resistance, and good formability. However, we should look ahead the lifecycle cost in order to have effective application of this material, so it is necessary to understand the lifecycle of such material. In weathering, outdoor weathering test is the surest way to clarify exactly how a material, component, or products degrade by environmental stresses in an acceptable timeframe, but it usually takes few years to decades to obtain a useful or referable result. Meanwhile, accelerated weathering test methods have been proposed as a method to obtain the results in a short period of time than outdoor weathering test. However, the method of estimating a material durability in the actual environment from these obtained data has not yet been established.In this section, it would be showing some attentions for comparison of the results from outdoor and accelerated weathering test. Then the need for investigating weatherability of polymeric materials through physicochemical analysis are emphasized to improve the relevance and precision of durability under field and laboratory weathering test. Lastly, introducing the design of accelerated weathering method based on natural weathering characteristics.