The Importance of Coating a Fiber Cement Substrate

摘要

This study is a preliminary investigation into the performance of a surface coating on a fiber cement substrate. The surface of fiber cement being coated is neither homogeneous nor uniform in the distribution of components and as such, influences any surface coating applied to it. Attempting to coat any surface of this kind has an impact on both performance of the coating and the final performance characteristics of the coated product. The initial phase of the investigation involved a qualitative study of the surface morphology of fiber cement using scanning electron microscopy, this was followed with energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis to identify the major components of the fiber cement at, or near the surface boundary. The second phase of the investigation looks at the resultant performance of the coating when applied over the fiber cement substrate. In order to investigate the surface coating, optical microscopy and image analysis techniques were used in order to investigate the effect of the morphology on the coating structure.