What Affects The Industrial Paint You Choose?

Author Andy Potts | Reading time approx 2 mins

 

Industrial Paint - How To Choose The Right One

There are many factors influencing the choice of coatings for protection of a structure or part of a structure. Selection of a coating system is in most cases based on the owners' own experience and on recommendations given by applicator/yard and coating manufacturer. This will be a mix of the legislative requirements, cost, usage and coating properties.     Involved Parties’ Coating Selection Criteria

Local Authorities

The authorities have influence on selection of coatings through legislation and by recommended practices. This includes :

• Safety
 
• Health
 
• Environment 
 
• Technical recommendations

The most important organisations are :

• National authorities
 
• International Maritime Organisation (IMO)
 
• Classification societies

Examples where legislation and recommendations from authorities affects coating selection and paint application are :

• Work procedures related to welding
 
• Anti-fouling
 
• Soft coats in seawater ballast tanks
 
• Restrictions regarding use of tar-based paint

  Customer (The Most Important)    The ultimate goal for a customer is to select a system in such a way that the lowest lifetime cost is achieved. The customer’s prime interest therefore concerns :

• Cost-effective systems
 
• System to perform according to specified lifetime
 
• Easy inspection
 
• Easy repair & maintenance
 
• Light coloured products in tanks and void spaces

  Yard / Contractor   The main interest of the yard is to have a cost effective production. This means that, to have a fast production rate, they prefer to operate according to established yard procedures, where they can use their own experience, available technology and the skills of the personnel. This will reflect their coating selection criteria :

• Cheap solutions
 
• Prefer to use own standard specification
 
• Easy application with fewer coats
 
• Capacity and speed of production
 
• Avoid long overcoating intervals
 
• Quick drying and/or curing
 
• Allow low-temperature application
 
• Surface tolerant products to reduce pre-treatment quality
 
• Solvent-less or solvent-free
 
• Type of facilities available for blast cleaning, water-jetting, paintwork & curing
 
• Light coloured paints

  Coating Manufacturer   In many cases, both the owner and the yard have preferred suppliers. They all have to agree upon which system to be used. Basically, the coating manufacturer is interested in selling a system which is fit for the purpose. He should therefore evaluate all technical aspects that will have an influence on the coating performance/lifetime :

• Customer’s expectation regarding performance and life time for the protective system
 
• Exposure conditions during application, curing and operation
 
• Surface treatment method
 
• For new building, the sequence of construction
 
• For new building, quality of shop primer and secondary surface preparation method
 
• For maintenance, the existing coating system and breakdown
 
• Adequate paint film thicknesses to be used
 
• Cathodic Protection as additional protection
 
• Ensure that the application and drying/curing conditions are in line with the paints’ technical data sheets
 
• Experience and level of qualification of personnel

 

A Word of Warning on Guarantees

Most faults are caused by poor pre-treatment, residual contamination left on the surface or poor application techniques of the coating itself. For this reason, it is reasonable for the company doing the work (contractor or yard) to guarantee its responsibility vis-à-vis the owner.

Most Industrial paint manufacturers is willing to discuss guarantees as long as there is a certain standard of the pre-treatment (usually blast cleaning to Sa 2 ½) and provided that their specified coating system is used.

Faults may appear in the coating or they may occur as a result of wrong information being given regarding use of the product concerned.  For this reason, it is important to note the production (batch) number of the coating material, and it is therefore in the manufacturer’s own interest to retain samples of the coating in case a claim should be made.

 

Industrial Paint Selection Checklist

As a final piece of advice i've research a checklist to live by in industrial coatings. So here it is a quick guide to considerations you should be making everytime a job specification drops into your lap.

As can be seen from the above, the selection of a paint system such as Jotun Paints is rather complex and must be done on a case to case basis. It is therefore impossible to put up one complete procedure applicable for all cases. However, a few general points can be used as a check list :

• Make sure that all legislation relevant for the application, use of coating and use of construction unit is known before the coating is selected
 
• Have all relevant precautions for protecting applicators and the surrounding environment been made ? Ensure HSE (Health, Safety & Environment)
 
• Does the contractor possess the facilities and skills for doing a good job with the selected system ?
 
• Is the require/expected lifetime of the system clear and is the proposed system capable of meeting this requirement ?
 
• Is the pre-treatment compatible with the paint to be applied ?
 
• Is the paint system well defined and in line with technical requirements given in the data sheets ?
 
• Is the proposed paint system suitable for protecting the structure/unit in question ?
 
• Have you selected multi-coat treatments with coatings layers of contrasting colours for improving conditions of application and inspection ?
 
• Is the maintenance frequency, methods and routines possible to meet with the selected system ?
 
• Will Cathodic Protection be used to back up the paint system?. If so, the coating system selected for the protection must be compatible with the supplementary cathodic protection system.
 
• Are the products accompanied by detailed technical and safety specifications ?
 
• Are satisfactory performance records, appropriate test data and other required documentation available ?
 
• Is the manufacturer capable of providing adequate technical support & service ?

If all of the above can be answered sufficiently you've probably just found your paint system! If not then you may want to recheck before committing yourself to a system that may leave you hanging to dry.

 

If you have any questions please leave them in the comments section below.