William Seawell is the Director of Technical Services for Induron Protective Coatings. William has 8 years’ experience in industrial coatings chemistry, specification, and application. He holds a NACE CIP 2 and a BSc. in Chemistry from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Should Adhesion be the Property Pulling Specifications?

The classic dolly adhesion pull test has long dominated the coatings’ industry as a major indicator of a coating’s performance and therefore suitability for various water and wastewater service environments. Common methods used to assess adhesion include those detailed in ASTM D4541 and ISO 4624.

Here we present novel research, quantitatively assessing industry standard adhesion testing methods as performance predictors of several generic coating types.

Coatings’ adhesions are assessed via ASTM D4541 and the resultant damaged steel panel is subjected to weathering and accelerated weathering testing via outdoor weathering, potable water immersion testing, chemical immersion testing, and ASTM B117 salt fog testing.

In the talk, the results of this research will be discussed in terms of the adhesion test’s predictive power with respect to water and wastewater coatings’ performance as well as the various engineering advantages and disadvantages of the generic coating types tested considering this data. An update will be given as to the state of ongoing long term testing.