Investigation into the Abrasion Resistance of Polyurea Coating by the Taber Abraser

Polyurea coatings is a relatively new class of industrial coating, usually applied by spray
using specialised equipment and characterised by extremely fast drying and high
performance. Polyurea’s strength are tailored to fill the gaps left traditional coating
products used in the oil and gas industry and is the ideal coating product for the oil and
gas industry’s especially for pipelines. The abrasion wear resistance for this coating is
highly demanded and it relate with the surface preparation which is one of the main
focus to maintain the abrasive wear resistance. To achieve good coating, steel substrate
must have proper roughness in order to provide an increased effective surface area for
mechanical bonding. This roughness, also known as anchor pattern or surface profile,
forms micro pattern of peaks and valleys at the surface, which can be obtained via
solvent cleaning methods and hand and power tool methods when an abrasive blast
cleaning is not practical due to limited accessibility.
The objective of the project is to determine the abrasion wear resistance of the
polyurea coating and the next objective is to vary the different kind of surface
preparation with the surface roughness on the coating. The abrasion resistance is
determining by using Taber Abraser Machine and also using with the surface profiler
machine to get the data for the surface roughness. The test is done according to the
standard which is ASTM D 4060-95: Standard Test Method for Abrasion Resistance of
Organic Coatings by Taber Abraser.
From the data collected, it is observed that the two different surface preparations
which is by Hand and Power Tool, St 3 and by Solvent Cleaning, SP 1; show some
variation that effect on the abrasion wear resistance. This observation is based on the
surface roughness that gives the data for average roughness on the surface, Ra. An
essential feature of any coating system is the bond between the coating and the
substrate. For successful coatings, the substrate surfaces needs to rough and pitted to
provide a “foot-hold” (Splat-Hold) for each splat of coating that impacts the substrate.