Many daily-use products like a medical mask, tissue, shirt, etc., have a strict unbiased industry testing standard to control the quality at many tiny details. These standards ensure that consumers can receive the goods with satisfaction, and manufacturers need to improve their process and quality continuously. The test standard will be updated timely from thousands of test reports and clients' after-sale feedback.
Regarding the PE tarp or Vinyl tarp test, there are many functional tests such as colorfastness, abrasion-resistant, tear-resistant, etc. In this post, I will introduce the essential UV-resistant test process.
What are the critical points of the Polyethylene or Vinyl UV Resistant test?
● Irradiance Level
The range of UV radiation is extensive, from <0.1nm to >1mm. The sunlight ultra-violence is between 300-400nm, a long wavelength UV related to less harmful to our skin, but affects many polymers' degradation of many polymers finished products like polyethylene or Vinyl.
PE tarp can be used for 1-2 years. But in fact, an environment with too many aging factors can significantly reduce the lifespan of tarps. Before the UV test, the expert will set many additional environmental elements like rain, temperature, humidity, sunlight exposure, and other parameters to simulate the aging process in the machine. The irradiance level will be 0.8-1.0 W/㎡/nm, similar to the actual sunlight.
● Lamb Types & Requestments
Fluorescent ultraviolet lamps can apply to the ASTM G154 test. Due to the various types of non-metal products, the specifications of lights will be different. The 3rd supervision party will mark the details of the lamp in the report.
The laboratory’s indoor temperature & radiation distance will also impact the actual amount of radiation received by the fabric sample. So the final radiation parameter will refer to the specific detector.
● How To Proceed The UV Resistance Test
At first, the fabric sample will be cut by 75x150mm or 75x300mm and then fix with an aluminum loop. Put the sample into a QUV test chamber and set all the parameters.
0, 100, 300, 500, 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 hours can be supported. The QUV test chamber has the stimulate accelerating function with 4x 6x 8x… If the parameter is 8x, it will only need 125 real hours to stimulate the exposure of the natural 1000 hours.
Regarding the PE or Vinyl tarp, it is enough for samples to receive 300-500 stimulated hours' exposure. After that, the laboratory expert will start the following test, such as colorfastness, tear resistance, water resistance. Compared with the original sample, the final report will be drafted.
Post time: Feb-23-2022