The Agriculture, Construction and Earthmoving (ACE) coatings market use an estimated 560 million litres of coatings per annum. Within the sector, each organisation has developed a paint specification to ensure the product is protected from the harsh environment it operates in. However, this provides the manufacturers with significant challenges as there can be trade offs in performance characteristics dependent on formulation.  These issues then manifest themselves as customer complaints due to paint failures and also significant time spent, by the manufacturers, dealing with the dispute.

 

PRA World (PRAW) believe it is best placed to create an industry standard that offers some degree of protection to the manufacturers from claims made against them in the event of a failure. The standard will also provide the end users with clear performance measures and quality assurance prior to application.

 

Pera International have provided £50,000 of research funding to enable PRAW to develop the ACE Coatings standard as part of the PRAW Product Certification Scheme.

 

The scheme developed by PRAW, covers key performance criteria; Optical Characteristics; Environmental Performance; Mechanical Performance; Fluid Resistance & Application Properties. The scheme also differentiates the coatings into specific groupings dependent upon their technology for the intended use, these are; Acrylic; Alkyd; Epoxy; Polyester; Polyurethane.

 

Products are now being tested in the PRA ISO 17025 accredited laboratory and for further information please contact Ian Hay, i.hay@pra-world.com