Abstract

The application of organic coatings is one of the most effective and economic methods to protect concrete structures from deterioration. However, organic coatings are prone to degradation under aggressive environmental actions, so the protective function may loss. While ultraviolet (UV) aging is often blamed for the degradation of organic coatings, water may play a more important role on the interfacial adhesion between the coatings and the substrate. To uncover the effect of water on the degradation performance of coating-substrate system, mortar samples coated with water-borne epoxy resin (WER) were exposed to three assigned environments, i.e., UV radiation, UV/water immersion, and UV/dry-wet cycle, up to 60 days. The surface appearance, chemical structure, wettability, and surface micro-morphology of the aged WER coatings were characterized via image process analysis, attenuated total reflectance flourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR–FTIR), static water contact angle, and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). Results show that the UV/water immersion resulted in severest blistering on the WER-mortar interface, while the UV/wet-dry cycle caused the formation of micro-pinholes on the WER surface. In contrast, the UV radiation did not induce such severe aging. The data implied that water can accelerate the aging of WER-mortar system.