Dow Spring House Farm Tour

Coatings World Editor Kerry Pianoforte toured Dow’s paint and coatings exposure-testing site in Spring House, Pennsylvania. One of 20 sites Dow operates worldwide, the Spring House site is its largest. The “farm” tests approximatley 40,000 painted test boards and 30,000 smaller panels outdoors, at various angles and on different substrates, tracking mildew growth, chalking, flaking, and color fade over time using both inspectors and Dow’s eXposure Vision digital imaging system. Heather Eckenrode, Technical Service Specialist at Dow led the tour.

CW: What is the history of the farm?

Eckenrode: The current location, known in the industry as “The Farm,” has been in operation since the early 1980s. However, Dow’s exterior exposure program dates to the 1950s, when scientists began investigating the exterior durability of acrylic polymers. Early coatings were exposed in some unique locations, such as the side of a chicken coop or the roof of a production facility.  As our exposure program evolved, custom exposure racks were developed to organize and accommodate multiple test panels, and testing protocols became increasingly formalized. Today, the program has grown into an extensive process for evaluating coatings through rigorous science, subject matter expertise, and advanced digital tools. 

CW: How many acres is the farm and how many test panels do you have outside? 

Eckenrode: Our exposure field spans approximately 8.5 acres. The site is used to investigate coating durability through organized “exposure series” and to generate weathered substrates for additional testing. The expansive field provides multiple exposure areas that allow panels to be positioned in different directions and helps enable our teams to monitor exposures for many years to truly study long term durability performance.   At any point in time, approximately 40,000 panels are exposed.  Nearly every day, completed exposure series are retired, and new series are initiated as our team develops data packages to support new product launches and evaluates commercial coatings currently on the market. 

CW: What types of substrates are being tested?  

Eckenrode: We have more than 200 different substrate types in our database, including common wood and concrete building materials, exterior facade materials, various types of siding and fascia, and many others.  New substrates are continuously added as they enter the marketplace or are requested by customers.  If a surface is being painted in the commercial world, it is likely represented at our test facility.  Recent building material trends, such as the increased use of composite decking and tilt-up concrete structure construction, have influenced exposure design and the adoption of new substrates to better reflect real-world applications.

CW: Please describe the process of analyzing test panels. How often are they checked and how often are they brought in for analysis? 

Eckenrode: The frequency of collecting data or images of the test panels depends on several factors, including the coating formulation, panel orientation, and exposure location. Each panel is typically evaluated before it is placed outside, within a few days of being placed outdoors and after experiencing initial moisture exposure from rain or dew. These early assessments help scientists understand how the coating performs during the initial states of life.  Regularly scheduled additional data collection is aligned with expected timing of potential failure modes. Many panels are evaluated every 90 days, although some are assessed more frequently, while others may only require a few evaluations each year. Our exposure team also has the flexibility to inspect and measure panels upon request or outside the regularly scheduled analysis cycle. If a scientist has a particular question, or if images and data are needed quickly for a meeting, the team can capture images and collect information from panels on demand.  eXposure Vision™ Viewer by Dow gives the series owners an organized way of accessing all of the data (including images) associated with a particular exposure series.

CW: What makes the Spring House Farm unique as opposed to using accelerated weathering equipment?

Eckenrode: Accelerated weathering tests provide valuable laboratory data and can quickly identify coatings that are likely to fail.  However, to really prove something is going to outperform other coatings, long term outdoor exposure data is essential.  A “real world” amount of sun, temperature, and moisture exposure enables decisions to be made based on conditions close to the environment where they will be used.  Accelerated testing and equipment is generally very methodical in terms of the conditions. For example, a test chamber may cycle through set temperatures and set time intervals, and this does not represent real weather conditions. At the same time, accelerated learning is built into Dow’s exterior exposure program.  Exposure design factors are selected and combined to help scientists evaluate specific performance attributes more quickly.  For example, to learn about cracking as quickly as possible, the exposure plan would include a wood that is known to expand and contract because paints will generally crack more quickly on those boards and the boards would be exposed somewhere that experiences freeze/thaw cycles.  Dow’s exposure program has 15 sites globally, and each one has a unique set of weather conditions providing the teams with exposure data.

CW: How is the data used to help customers improve/troubleshoot their products? 

When new exterior products are developed, exposure data is a primary way to demonstrate and support the value.  Researchers at Dow include exposure series in their exterior product development from the very beginning all the way through to polymer optimization and launch. These data packages that cover the full polymer development process over a long cycle of time can help to answer a lot of questions that can arise throughout a polymer’s life cycle on the market.  

Another way data from the Farm helps both our internal teams and our customers is to investigate relative performance of commercial products relative to Dow’s innovation products.  For this type of series, there may be 80+ commercial paints from a particular segment in the same series, allowing our scientists and customers to compare the relative performance of different price points in their product line or different performance claims that might be on the can and get a great understanding of how a Dow polymer can help enable their formulations to compete differently.

Series may also be designed to investigate formulation ingredients such as binder, additives or extenders that can significantly impact durability or other factors such volume solids or film thickness. In–person exposure series tours can be designed to dig into the relative performance of those paints as well as the innovation product performance. Exposure series typically do not exist as stand-alone experiments. During the scouting phase of a project, an initial series will go out and our scientists will check for early progress and build upon that initial concept with another series. 

This process of building a robust exposure history will continue well past the commercialization of a product.    We can use this depth of knowledge to support customers by having a robust set of data to investigate if any trouble shooting need arises or if any new ideas/questions about performance arise during the development.