Study On How Gel Coat Component Effect Ageing Resistance Property

Gel coat is the special material which gives protection and decoration of fiber glass-reinforced plastic (FRP) materials. The FRP products are now widely used in China and all over the world especially on wind energy industry and yacht industry, gel coat has got high performance requirement according the wind energy industry and yacht industry growing and upgrade, aging resistance is the key property which can evaluate the gel coat quality good or not.This paper describes gel coat component, gel coat film making mechanism and composite polymer aging mechanism, studies on how every gel coat component effects final gel coat aging property according ASTM G154-06 (Standard Practice for Operating Fluorescent Light Apparatus for UV Exposure of Nonmetallic Materials aging test standards) and inspects crtical wind energy industry and yacht industry white gel coat, gray white gel coat, gray gel coat and orange gel coat on yellowing, color difference and gloss retention with timing of accelerated aging test to verify how the gel coat component effect gel coat aging resistance property.Gel coat base resin is the key factor which effects gel coat aging resistance property what we can get from many experiments in this paper. After about 1000hr accelerated aging test, iso-phthalic/neopentyl glycol base gel coat shows excellent aging resistance property while ortho-phthalic base gel coatis the worst, yellowing Ab value of gray gel coat is 2.05, CMCâ–³E color difference value is 2.07, gloss retention is 80.60%; iso-phthalic base gel coat yellowing Ab value and CMCâ–³E value are 3.10 and 3.58, gloss retention decrease to 85.20%; ortho-phthalic base gel coat yellowing Ab value and CMCAE value are 4.98 and 6.67, gloss retention decrease to 51.55% and the gel coat has lost gloss. Because higher pigment loading in pure white gel coat than gray or gray white gel coat, iso-phthalic/neopentyl glycol base and iso-phthalic base both keep above 90% gloss retention, but great difference on yellowing Ab value and CMCAE color difference value, iso-phthalic/neopentyl glycol base gel coat value is 1.65 and 2.08, iso-phthalic base gel coat value is 3.54 and 4.82. Except gel coat component, pigment type, pigment content, monomer type and content and ultraviolet radiation absorber all will affect some of gel coat age resistance property.The last experiment optimized gel coat formulation is to get not only good gel coat aging resistance and but also no gel coat color separation what is not due to the high pigment loading and two type monomers exist by Minitab DOE function and Pareto analysis.Going through the paper we may see gel coat base resin, pigment type, pigment content, monomer type and content, UV absorber would all affect the gelcoat age resistance ability.