CORNET Initiative – DuraCoat project

The Project is realised in cooperation with the following German partners:

- Forschungsgesellschaft für Pigmente und Lacke e.V. (FPL),

- Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA), Germany.

Polish Corrosion Society is an Applicant of this project. The research is conducted in the Institute for Engineering Polymer Materials and Dyes, in the Road and Bridge Research Institute in Warsaw and the Department of Paints and Plastics in Gliwice. The Users Committee that cooperates with the Applicant comprises of 8 companies-members of the Polish Corrosion Society: ANTICOR PPH Sp. z o.o, ARMA Firma Inżynierska Spółka Jawna, CORRPOL Sp. z o.o., DAAS Sp. z o.o., DUHEN 2 Spółka Cywilna, MALCHEM Sp. z o.o., TALKOR Sp. z o.o., ZINGAMETALL Poland S.C.

In accordance with the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 305/2011, in force since the 1^st of July 2013, the following requirement No 7 was added to the basic requirements for construction works: Sustainable use of natural resources (Annex 1 to the Regulation), in which the most important issue is to ensure the durability of construction works. It is a known fact that an unprotected or uncorrectly protected steel structure will lose its bearing capacity and stability in a few or a few dozen years. Taking this into consideration we can see how important it is to determine and optimize the durability of corrosion protection on steel structures.

The project’s objective is to develop criteria and guidelines for choosing coating systems for steel structures painting, basing on results from research conducted on existing objects and accelerated studies by normalized and newly developed methods. Applying different research methods will contribute to better understanding of the usefulness of accelerated tests to evaluating coatings for long term corrosion protection.

The project will study coating systems applied in the last 10-20 years on steel bridge structures, mostly epoxy/polyurethan commonly used in Europe on objects of that sort. Damages and loss of barrier properties of coatings will be evaluated directly on the selected bridges. Laboratory methods will evaluate their resistance to the mechanical, corrosion and atmospheric factors. The project will also include a study of new generation coat systems (one-, two- and three-coat systems).

The project’s realisation is not only scientific, but also practical. The results obtained during the study will contribute to better understanding of mechanisms of damage on coat systems and discovering the biggest factors causing these damages. Evaluation of over 10 year old coatings directly on the objects and comparison of the results with the accelerated research results will make it possible to verify the knowledge of paint manufacturers, contractors and investors as it comes to the usability of the given products to specified applications. It will also be helpful in developing state-of-the-art coating systems and designing long lasting corrosion protection.

The results of testing coating systems applied thus far obtained in laboratory and from existing steel structures will be compared to state-of-the-art systems’ properties. This will enable: – determining usefulness of the applied research methods for evaluation and estimation of coating durability in real conditions – without the necessity for long term field studies – specifying optimal coating systems for long lasting corrosion protection of steel structures.