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...reliably predict actual field performance. There are several reasons for this:
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* Weather itself is not a repeatable phenomenon (i.e., does not reproduce itself), so it is not surprising that attempts to predict the consequences of weather should be similarly unsuccessful. (2)
* The coatings industry has not adequately defined the components of weather that contribute to coatings failure in the field, nor quantified their dose-response relationship. (3,4)
* There has been no overarching pressure or compelling reason to marshal the necessary resources industry-wide to correct the above problems and accomplish the mission of reliably predicting field behavior of coatings.
Successes in Other Industries
Meanwhile, several other industries have accomplished this mission: commercial air travel, medical devices, and electronics, to name a few. In each case, the very existence of those industries depends on achieving the Service Life Prediction (SLP) goal, because broad-based acceptance would not be possible without it. Lacking such a corresponding necessity, the coatings industry has not yet achieved this same goal. The thesis of this chapter is that class action product liability lawsuits may well foster this need.
Lifetime vs. Liability
It is interesting that product lifetime and product liability are quite different issues. Most product failure claims originate from deficiencies in installation or robustness (aka "infant-mortality failures"), rather than from less-than-expected long-term lifetimes (aka "capability"). Some examples of abnormal early failures include early infant deaths (crib death, premature birth problems, immune deficiencies), burn-in failures of electronic circuits, and early failures in mechanical devices due to installation errors.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Unfortunately, standard testing protocols tend to filter out these early failures as being unrepresentative or irrelevant. (5) Early failures usually have different causes than normal lifetime failures, (6) relating to errors in installation of the product, or to insufficient tolerance of the range of adverse conditions that are routinely experienced during installation. An example of the latter would be attempting to establish adhesion while the substrates were wet.
A product is said to be robust if it has few such early failures. In the case of coatings, both installation deficiencies and lack of tolerance by the coating play significant roles in early failures. Additionally, coatings manufacturers rarely have control over the installation process.
Class Action Lawsuits
Tort law asserts that products must perform as expected (claimed), even under adverse conditions during installation, if...
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have been removed from this article.
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