Investigation of some weathering impacts on tearing properties of PVC-coated fabrics used for architectural purposes

This paper reports the comprehensive experimental study of the tearing behaviour of PES/PVC-coated architectural membranes exposed to different accelerated aging conditions. Coated fabrics intended as building envelopes are constantly exposed to the environmental impacts, therefore, it is important to determine the influence of these factors on changes of mechanical properties, and the tear strength was considered to be one of the essential characteristics associated with the life span of a tensioned membrane structures. An accelerated aging model was developed based on the analysis of the aging factors significantly relevant to the building operation. The effect of abrasion, higher temperature and humidity as well as set of these aging factors on tear performance were investigated. The results show that in most cases the tear strength of architectural membranes changes marginally within the limits after exposure to artificial aging. The biggest contributor to tearing changes was high temperature, which could be the dominant component in the aging model. The study provides a better understanding of tearing performance of PVC-coated fabrics in real environmental conditions.