The pull-off adhesion strength measured by the ASTM D4541 standard for marine coating system
depends on several factors such as coating thickness, dolly size, curing time of the coating and adhesive,
skills of the test operator. The effect of these factors on the adhesion strength is not well understood. In
this work, the following three factors – coating curing time, drying time followed by water immersion
test and the coating thickness and their impact on adhesion strength of the heavy-duty marine aminecured
epoxy coating system were investigated. We found that (1) the longer curing time, the higher pulloff
strength, it may be due to higher crosslinking density of the coating; (2) the longer drying time after
water immersion, the higher pull-off strength, it may be due to the evaporation of water molecule at the
coating-substrate interface; (3) pull-off strength increases as coating thickness increases due to the
diminishment of bending effect.
Keywords : pull-off strength, curing time, thickness of the panel, adhesion test