Ageing and characterisation of PVC-based compounds utilised for exterior applications in the building construction field 1: Thermal ageing

One major problem encountered with polymeric materials is their sensitivity to outdoors weathering. Exposure to outdoors conditions leads to a degradation of the use Properties of the material. This set of articles describes a comparison of the behavior of several stabilised polyvinylchlorides exposed to various conditions of ageing including light and temperature. The first article focusses on the effect of thermal ageing on the infrared and UV-visible characteristics of the selected samples. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.