Aging of Polymeric Films used in Protective Glazing Systems

Published

July 7, 2015

Author(s)

Christopher C. White, Donald L. Hunston, Kar T. Tan

Abstract

The toughness of polymer and glass laminates or win-dow glazing, are used to protect buildings and occupants from shattered glass resulting from natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, seismic events), and intentional events (e.g., robbery, terrorist attack). The critical roles of glazing protection may be appreciated from the series of tornados that recently terrorized Alabama and the mid-west; these events exposed the dangers of residential glass in high wind natural disaster situations. Glazing films, as with all other polymers, may degrade upon pro-longed exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, rain, snow, or extreme temperature. Such undesirable weathering will impact physical, chemical and mechanical properties of the materials, deteriorating the durability and shortening their useful life spans. Many recent inves-tigations have explored the design of protective glazing systems but surprisingly little has been learned about the long term durability or the service life prediction for these films. This work seeks to provide fundamental under-standing of degradation mechanism of the polymers used in the protective glazing systems exposed to various environmental factors and to clarify the relative importance of each factor’s contribution to the mechanisms of degradation. The preliminary results obtained from the study are reported here.

Proceedings Title

Proceeding of the 2012 Adhesion Society

Conference Dates

February 26-29, 2012

Conference Location

New Orleans , LA

Conference Title

The 2012 Meeting of the Adhesion Society

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

Adhesion, polymer, glazing films, toughness, building envelope, weathering, exposure, elongation to break, UV radiation, humidity, moisture, chemical mechanism, field exposure, polymer film, accelerated weathering, service life prediction

Citation

White, C. , Hunston, D. and Tan, K. (2015), Aging of Polymeric Films used in Protective Glazing Systems, Proceeding of the 2012 Adhesion Society , New Orleans , LA (Accessed April 19, 2024)