Effects of irradiation conditions on the weathering of engineering thermoplastics

The nature of the light source and its intensity can be important variables in accelerated weathering of aromatic engineering thermoplastics. Activation spectra show that BPA polycarbonate (PC) and its blends are very sensitive to UV with wavelengths <300 nm, as is well-known in the literature, but other resins gave unremarkable results. Xenon arc weathering experiments performed under identical conditions, but with different filter combinations did not show consistent rate enhancements. For 48 samples across a range of aromatic engineering thermoplastics, conditions using borosilicate inner and outer filters were 1.7× harsher than the CIRA/soda lime filter combination. However, the range was 1.0-2.5 and the standard deviation was approximately 0.35 making the correlation 1.7 ± 0.7 at 95% confidence level for any given sample. The quartz/borosilicate combination used in SAE J1960 was 2.3× harsher than CIRA/soda lime conditions, but the standard deviation was 1.1 making the correlation 2.3 ± 2.2 at the 95% confidence level for any given sample. The effects of irradiance level and the dark cycle were determined in order to establish the legitimacy of accelerated testing methods. Linear increases in degradation with increased irradiance were observed for PC, poly(butylene terephthalate), and blends of PC with other polymers. Some non-linearity was found for styrene acrylonitrile copolymer (SAN), and extreme non-linearity was found for ABS. No effect was found from a light/dark cycle other than the rate reductions expected from the lower dose rate. Thus, for accelerated weathering of engineering thermoplastics, the best possible match for sunlight is required, but increasing the intensity and decreasing or eliminating the dark period are permissible for most aromatic thermoplastic resins.