Ageing and Durability of Organic Polymers

Abstract

“Ageing” is any slow and irreversible phenomenon (under usage conditions) of a material’s structure, morphology or composition, under the effects of its own instability and/or interaction with the environment. Any condition is considered to be slow when the kinetics are not apprehensible in a time scale which is compatible with economic restraints. The classic approach of predicting long-term behavior consists of carrying out accelerated tests simulating, as accurately as possible, natural ageing and to presume that the hierarchy of stability for several materials is the same in accelerated and natural ageing. The modern approach consists of developing a kinetic model derived from analyzing degradation materials. Accelerated ageing is, then, used to identify the model parameters.