ISSN: 1546-962X
Published Online: 22 February 2007
Page Count: 9

Study of Weatherability of Construction Sealants with Novel Testing Method

Enomoto, Noriyoshi
Member of Technical Committee, Japan Sealant Industry Association (JSIA), Tokyo,

Ito, Akihiko
Member of Technical Committee, Japan Sealant Industry Association (JSIA), Tokyo,

Shimizu, Ichirou
Team leader, Japan Testing Center for Construction Materials, Saitama,

Matsumura, Takashi
Staff of Research Section, Hokkaido Northern Building Research Institute, Hokkaido,

Takane, Yoshimitsu
Manager of Research Section, Japan Weathering Test Center, Chiba,

Tanaka, Kyoji
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama,

(Received 13 June 2005; accepted 20 October 2005)

Abstract

Although construction sealants are used for all kinds of construction joints such as static joints with little movement, dynamic joints with thermal or seismically induced movement, and so on, the general test methods employed in the evaluation of the weatherability of construction joint are based on weathering test without movement. In November of 2000, AIJ (Architectural Institute of Japan) established a subcommittee chartered with developing an accelerated weathering test method, which enables the determination of the durability of waterproofing materials and sealants. In this activity, we evaluated the weatherability of sealants with a new test method using newly developed test specimens, which enable exposing the cured sealants to compression and extension at the same time in a single test specimen. In this paper, we report the interim test results, which cover twelve months of natural weathering and 3500 hours artificial weathering with xenon lamp and carbon flame weathering device. In this evaluation, we confirm that the surface degradation of sealants is accelerated by the additional movement cycles, and the differences in the degradation among the sealants are becoming observable.

Keywords:
sealant, weatherability, joint movement, out-door exposure, accelerated exposure

Paper ID: JAI13127
DOI: 10.1520/JAI13127
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