Accelerated Laboratory Tests for the Automotive Industry

Automobiles have become an essential part of our daily lives. We navigate through our existence with different brands and models of vehicles. While providing people with pleasure through varied colors and designs, automobiles serve an extremely important function in a fast-paced life. Particularly in urban transportation, those who prefer not to use public transit or lack access to it—especially in the business world or our personal lives—benefit from the time savings that vehicles provide. As automobiles have become indispensable to our lives, vehicle manufacturers now strive to design vehicles that emit less gas, can operate on electricity, or go a step further with flying cars, attempting to secure leading positions in the sector. Time will tell how realistic the flying automobile concept—which certainly excites us when we hear about it—will prove to be. While automobiles provide dozens of benefits, they certainly cause environmental damage through harmful gas emissions from the fuel they burn. Although the amounts have decreased compared to vehicles manufactured in earlier years, particularly due to advances in fuel filter systems, they continue to harm nature and the atmosphere. This is certainly a regrettable fact known to all of us. On the other hand, the contributions that popular and well-regarded brands or models in the world make to their country's economy are beyond measure. For example, when we examine German automobile brands such as BMW, Mercedes, Opel, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, it would not be wrong to say that the contribution to Germany's national economy from high demand and sales, based on market recognition of these brands, is at very high values. As you can see above, when we examine the internal and external parts of a vehicle and consider that an automobile is composed of the combination of approximately 30,000 different materials, we can easily understand its contribution to the national economy. The employment created and the added value are indisputable figures. Automobiles, in addition to their aesthetic beauty, due to their life spans in nature and the corrosive environments to which they are exposed (rain, humidity, sun, chemical contacts, marine environments, hot-cold environments, etc.), require that all equipment used both inside and outside the vehicle—such as coatings (paint, varnish, lacquer, metallic coatings, inorganic coatings, etc.) or pure metal or plastics—must withstand these environments. A few years later, none of us want to see the color of our vehicle's roof paint change due to sun exposure or rust formation beneath our paint in areas near marine environments. Taking general standards into account, we can say that paint coating warranties given to automobiles are typically 10 years. That is, all manufacturers plan especially for the body paint of the vehicle to withstand the most severe external environmental conditions for at least 10 years and produce their vehicles with coating models that will provide this protection. Of course, another question that might occur to us is what the most severe external environmental conditions are. I can share Table 1 in terms of providing information to manufacturers regarding corrosion classifications in the EN ISO 12944-2 standard. The tests corresponding to the categories in this table are included in the EN ISO 12944-6 standard. [caption id="attachment_137165" align="aligncenter"] Table 1: Atmospheric corrosivity categories and typical environment examples[/caption] As can be seen in Table 2, we observe that there are two fundamental corrosion tests that must be performed: salt spray testing and humidity resistance testing. We can state that these two tests are among the most important accelerated corrosion tests performed specifically to evaluate the corrosion performance of organic coatings. However, as automotive manufacturers encountered corrosion performance problems that arose over time, these tests were supported with different tests, enabling more realistic approaches, and with this capability, higher corrosion resistance was achieved, allowing 10-year coating warranties to be provided. Automotive manufacturers, through discussions and agreements with both surface preparation chemical companies and organic/inorganic paint coating companies, have articulated their requirements, directing these suppliers to make necessary improvements in their products and produce more durable and high-performance products. Over the years, we can clearly state that each automobile brand now has its own specific test standards and requirements for acceptance of vehicle interior and exterior coatings and materials. If any supplier company wants to produce parts for an automobile brand, the parts produced in coating facilities must pass the tests prepared by that automobile company according to their location and position on the vehicle and must meet the test requirements. Of course, the approval authority for this is professional laboratories like ours that hold EN ISO 17025 accreditation and certify that they can perform these tests within the scope of accreditation. In general terms, some important automobile test corrosion standards and names are: Ford: CETP: 00.00-L-467, BMW: AA-0224, Mercedes: DBL 7382, Volkswagen: PV1209-PV 1210, Jaguar: TPJLR.52.265, MAN: M 3166. The most important feature of these standards is that different corrosion environments—for example, salt spray environment, humid environments, hot dry environments, rain environments, etc.—are brought together in the same test cycle. With 24-hour test cycles planned in this manner, severe conditions are accelerated within test cabinets, making it possible to see what performance values organic or inorganically coated parts will achieve under real-life conditions. Supplemented with Xenon sunlight tests to control color and gloss values, and chemical resistance tests to control degradation following chemical contact, automobiles with superior performance are delivered to drivers over many years, both in terms of rust prevention and cosmetic appearance. As Metaltek laboratory, we have been providing service for 10 years through Cyclic Corrosion Tests, Sunlight Resistance Tests, Chemical Resistance Tests, and Mechanical Resistance Tests for many different brands and models in the automotive sector. I wish to inform you through this article that an agreement was made between TOGG, our country's first domestic automobile brand, and Metaltek, and we expect to assist them with test requests. On the other hand, if considered and desired, like other foreign automobile brands, I believe that through bringing ourselves and other valued stakeholders of our domestic vehicle TOGG to the table, we can easily create our own automobile test standards. By means of this article, I wish to respectfully inform you that Metaltek plans to organize an event on the occasion of our 15th anniversary in May 2022, inviting all our stakeholders in our sector to our laboratory.

Tuncay Katırcı General Manager Metaltek