Paint Testing

Tremendous financial losses are incurred every year as a result of premature failure of paints and coatings. Costs of such failures far outweigh the initial costs of painting because of the complexity of repairs and the liability associated with downtime to correct the problems. MATCO's Coatings Division resolves coating failure problems by application of the techniques listed in the table above. MATCO performs a wide array of standard ASTM and NACE test procedures. However, it's not only our equipment that sets us apart from other laboratories, it's our expertise. Our SSPC and NACE certified coating/corrosion professionals will look at the paint failure from both the paint formulation and corrosion/substrate point of views and know which technique will provide the most useful information, given the nature of the failure.

For example, gas chromatography is excellent at detecting solvents, but would be of little use in determining why an alkyd resin failed. Another example is that only EIS and exposure tests can distinguish between storage related problems and paint application/formulation problems in white rust formation on painted galvanized steels. Traditional approaches cannot make the distinction. These insights could save unnecessary effort and expense, simply by selecting the right test.

In our paint failure investigations, you will be kept informed of results as they become available. Each failure analysis investigation will include a formal report containing the description of the defect, review of the application and exposure conditions, chemical analysis of the paint to check against specifications, on-site and analytical test results, factors influencing the paint failure, identification of failure mechanism and root cause, related problems, and corrective actions if requested.

We also offer a procedure used at Matco Services to qualify candidate coating systems referred to as Tier Testing for paint and coating evaluation.  The Tier Testing protocol provides a standard test method to assess various coating systems from different suppliers under the same criteria and conditions.  The performance based testing is used to evaluate, compare and then rank a coating system’s overall performance in regards to, among other criteria when tested for, cathodic disbondment, coating electrical impedance, cyclic exposure, hot water immersion, ultraviolet (UV) exposure; and cross sectional metallographic inspection.

Paint and Protective Coating Laboratory Testing Available: