Testing and modelling of DIARC plasma coated elastic-plastic steel wedge specimens

The stability and durability of DIARC vacuum plasma surface treatment was tested for structural bonding with elastic-plastic steel wedge test specimens. In the treatment nanostructured DIARC Bindo coating is deposited on the substrates in a vacuum chamber. The DIARC-treated surface is ready for bonding and does not require any additional treatments, chemicals or primers containing hazardous CrVI chromium. The tests were performed at hot and wet exposure. Virtual Crack Closure Technique (VCCT) was successfully used in the design of test specimens and in the analyses of the results. Five-year-old DIARC coating performed equally with the freshly-bonded DIARC specimens. The results were also comparable with the best results achieved with existing grit-blast silane and grit-blast Sol-Gel primer methods with aluminium and titanium.