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Revision Date: March 21, 2011
Updated On: March 25, 2011
Editorial Change:
Water can cause the degradation of coatings, so knowledge of how a coating resists water is helpful for assessing how it will perform in actual service. Failure in tests at 100 % relative humidity may be caused by a number of factors including a deficiency in the coating itself, contamination of the substrate, or inadequate surface preparation. This practice is therefore useful for evaluating coatings alone or complete coating systems.
Tests at 100 % relative humidity are used for specification acceptance, quality control, and research and development for coatings and substrate treatments. Some tests are used for a pass or fail determination at an arbitrary time. A coating system is considered to pass if there is no evidence of water-related failure after a period of time. Other tests are used to monitor degree of failure as a function of exposure time.
Arbitrary pass/fail levels and the test durations required are typically set in other material specific test methods. Users of this practice alone may use the known performance of the controls to set test end points. Another option is to continue the test until all specimens have failed, and use the time to reach failure as a way to differentiate performance.
Results obtained from the use of 100 % humidity tests in accordance with this practice should not be represented as being equivalent to a period of exposure to water in the natural environment, until the degree of quantitative correlation has been established for the coating or coating system.
The test chamber can be a small laboratory cabinet or a room large enough to hold an automobile or a truck. Some automobile manufacturers test completed vehicles in rooms maintained at 100 % relative humidity.
