Effect of UV on Properties of Transparent Noise Barrier Materials

摘要

Transparent barriers provide an aesthetically pleasing solution to motorway noise abatement, and have gained considerable acceptance in Europe and Japan. However, manufacturers have not been able to provide sufficient data to give confidence of the long-term durability of these products under high-UV Queensland conditions. A laboratory research program has delineated the relative merits of the three candidate product types (tempered glass, acrylic and hard-coated polycarbonate), in terms of their structural properties when new and after exposure to UV radiation. Acrylic has generally good properties when new, but its fracture resistance degrades significantly when subjected to high doses of UV radiation, despite the presence of UV stabilisers sufficient to prevent yellowing. Polycarbonate has poor stiffness, but its fracture resistance is excellent and in the hard-coated noise-barrier product this is retained even after exposure to high-dose UV.