Progress in Organic Coatings 58 (2007) 241–247

Stone-impact damage of automotive coatings: A laboratory

single-impact tester
M. Lonyuk a,∗ , M. Bosma b , A.C. Riemslag a , J. Zuidema a , A. Bakker a , M. Janssen a
a Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, 2628 CD, Delft, The Netherlands
b Nuplex Resins, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Received 9 June 2006; accepted 1 September 2006

Abstract
Coating damage due to stone impact remains one of the major concerns of the automotive industry. The development of new environmental-
friendly paint systems prompts the paint manufacturers to pay more attention to the issue of reliable test methods that also approximate actual
service conditions. This paper describes a single-stone impact tester developed at Delft University of Technology. The apparatus uses compressed
air to launch a shaped projectile into a painted specimen. It allows to vary the velocity of the projectile, the angle of impact incidence and the
testing temperature over wide ranges. The single impact test technique (methodology) is successfully applied to a set of automotive coating systems
designed on water-base technology resulting in good reproducibility. Results are presented of a preliminary study on the influence of the primer
crosslinker content on the stone impact resistance of the paint system.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Water-borne paint; Single-impact tester; Chip resistance; Polyester/melamine primer

1. Introduction paint and substrate properties, and on the ambient condi-

tions.
Recently, new regulation that limits the volatile organic com- In literature several mechanisms of coating failure are listed
pound content of commercial paint products has led to the [1–14]. Impact loading of coatings is characterized by the
development of new formulations of water-borne coatings. The very short period of time involved and the high stresses that
growing market for these new coating systems and an increas- are induced at the site of impact. Multi-layer coating designs
ing demand for an improved chip resistance in the automotive offer more possibilities for obtaining chip resistant systems.
industry have created the necessity for appropriate evaluation In a multi-layer configuration adhesive and/or cohesive failure
methods with a proven reliability. can occur. Adhesive failure occurs when the adhesive strength
The chip resistance of automotive paint can be defined as between two layers is exceeded, resulting in delamination and
the ability of a multi-layered coating systems applied onto flaking or peeling. Cohesive failure occurs by crack initiation
a substrate to withstand impact of foreign particles without and propagation within a layer or across the entire multi-layer
damage. Moving automobiles are often subjected to impact coating. An important factor, which should be taken into account
by lofted stones. The velocity at which the stone hits the here, is the local temperature rise during impact, which will
automobile is approximately the same as the velocity of the have an effect on the paint failure behaviour. This problem was
vehicle, i.e. 40–140 km/h. Stone impact onto a painted auto- discussed in [15,16].
mobile body can result in paint removal or delamination There are several theories about the stresses involved in paint
at the substrate–paint interface, ultimately leading to corro- failure during the impact event. According to Ramamurthy et al.
sion of the metal substrate. Damage of paint due to stone [8], for impact normal to the surface a compressive stress wave
impact is a complex phenomenon and depends on projectile, propagates through the paint layers and the impacting particle at
approximately the acoustic wave speed in the respective media.
The peak shock stresses can reach up to 400 MPa. These waves
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 152782229; fax: +31 152786730. reflect in tension from free surfaces of both the target and the
E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Lonyuk). particle. When the tensile wave reaches the impact interface the

0300-9440/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.porgcoat.2006.09.032
242 M. Lonyuk et al. / Progress in Organic Coatings 58 (2007) 241–247

projectile and target separate and further wave reflections occur.

As stress waves propagate through the paint layers, local stresses
may far exceed the interface and layer strengths, resulting in
fracture, delamination, and spallation.
Papini and Spelt [12] assumed that coating removal mech-
anisms predominantly are quasi-static and not dynamic. They
show that coating removal is due to interfacial shear stresses. The
authors indicated that delamination typical occurs at the coating
layer having the weakest interfacial strength. Layers with good
adhesive properties fail by mechanical erosion mechanisms:
plowing or two types of cutting [13]. In Ref. [14] coating damage
is characterized as the result of three subsequent phenomena:

• initiation of delamination at the onset of impact due to large

shear stresses at the interface; Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the single-impact stone chip tester. (1) Air supply;
• buckling of the paint film due to large radial compressive (2) digital pressure controller; (3) air reservoir; (4) high-speed opening valve;
stresses in the film, which come from particle penetration in (5) loading unit; (6) launching tube; (7) velocity sensors; (8) specimen holder;
(9) temperature chamber.
the coating;
• delamination of coatings in mixed mode, i.e. through a com-
bination of modes I and II failure. ity of 40 m/s. These calculations resulted in a tube length of
600 mm.
The existing test methods to quantify chip resistance can An accurate digital pressure controller and a high-speed
be classified as multiple-impact or single-impact tests. Rama- opening valve are used to apply the pressure needed to acceler-
murthy et al. [7] gave a comprehensive review on this subject. In ate the projectile in the launching tube. The air reservoir located
multiple-impact testing a painted plate is subjected to the impact before the valve provides a sufficiently constant pressure during
of a stream of stones of a particular mass. The main drawbacks of launching. The small difference between the inner tube diameter
these methods are the poor reproducibility of the results and lack and the outer projectile diameter also contributes to a minimum
of control of the variables that affect the impact phenomenon. pressure loss during launching.
Therefore, the multiple-impact technique has been used more as The launching tube is fixed in a stiff housing to avoid vibra-
a rapid laboratory evaluation (ranking) method, rather than as a tions of the free end of the tube. Such vibrations are found to
tool to design paint systems. cause tilting of the projectile after leaving the tube exit. To ensure
Single impact tests provide better control over the projec- a straight trajectory of the projectile, the distance between the
tile velocity and the impact angle and give more reproducible tube exit and the specimen was set to only 20 mm. According to
results. The method can be successfully applied to study the Chevallier et al. [17] the air velocity is uniform and equal to the
mechanism of paint failure. There are several standardised air flow in the tube over a distance of approximately 6.2d, where
single-impact test methods. However, very often they show d is the diameter of the tube. The straightness of the trajectory
limited possibilities to set important variables and to fully of the projectile over a distance of 20 mm from the tube end was
resemble the service conditions of stone-impacted automotive confirmed by high-speed camera recordings (see Fig. 2).
coatings. The use of inappropriate projectiles and/or the lack The test specimen for the stone chip tester is a square panel
of the ability to vary impact temperature are the most common of automotive steel plate with a side of 100 mm. The specimen
shortcomings. is clamped at its four corners on a specimen holder, which can
This paper presents an experimental technique to study the be displaced in horizontal and vertical directions, controlled by
stone impact response of automotive paints. The results of pre- two stepping motors.
liminary tests on two different coating systems are discussed.

2. Single-impact stone chip tester

The single-impact stone chip tester was designed at Delft

University of Technology in cooperation with “A&M materiaal-
advies” consultancy bureau in Delft. A schematic diagram of the
test apparatus is presented in Fig. 1. The tester is constructed to
launch cylindrical projectiles of 3.15 mm diameter and a length
of up to 10 mm by means of compressed air. The launching takes
place by applying a constant pressure to the projectile, thereby
accelerating it in a tube of 3.2 mm diameter over a certain length.
Calculations were done to determine the required tube length at
a given pressure needed to achieve a maximum projectile veloc- Fig. 2. Photographic records of the projectile trajectory.
 M. Lonyuk et al. / Progress in Organic Coatings 58 (2007) 241–247 243

Table 1
Composition and layer thicknesses of the investigated coating systems
Coating system Primer formulation Thickness (␮m)

Cataphoretic coat, Primer, water-borne Top coat, PPG

PPG 5PP2Z0206 solvent-borne rouge flash

A3 Polyester resin/melamine: 80–20 wt.% 18–23 48–53 45–48

B3 Polyester resin/melamine: 90–10 wt.% 18–23 49–50 45–48
A2 Polyester resin/melamine: 80–20 wt.% 18–23 48–53 –
B2 Polyester resin/melamine: 90–10 wt.% 18–23 49–50 –

As a result of a projectile impact plate waves will be induced The coatings were applied to automotive bonderised steel
which travel in radial direction from the impact location and panels. The thickness of the specimen panels was 0.8 mm. The
reflect at the edges of the specimen or at the clamping. Such tensile and yield strength of the substrate steel were 287 MPa
reflections, if they arrive within the period that projectile and and 163 MPa, respectively.
plate are in contact, will affect the mechanical conditions dur- The curing regime for both primer formulations in the two-
ing impact and thus also affect the damage caused by it. layer coating systems was 80 ◦ C for 10 min followed by 24 min
Since the time needed for reflections to arrive at the loca- at 165 ◦ C. In the three-layer systems additional curing was per-
tion of impact depends on the location itself, results may formed of the top coat at 145 ◦ C for 24 min.
vary, leading to unwanted scatter. To avoid this as much as The impact tests were performed using cylindro-conical pro-
possible the outer 20 mm of the specimen is not used for jectiles with a diameter of 3.15 mm, a length of 5 mm and a top
testing. angle of 130◦ . They were made of hardened steel of 62 HRC.
The impact angle can be varied between 0◦ and 55◦ by manu- The projectile mass was 0.27 g. The tests were conducted in the
ally adjusting the specimen holder. The impact angle is defined velocity range between 7 m/s and 40 m/s at +20 ◦ C, 0 ◦ C, and
relative to the specimen normal. The table with the specimen 20 ◦ C. In all cases the impact angle was 45◦ relative to the surface
holder is placed on rails so it can be rolled in and out the tem- normal (see Fig. 3). For this angle the impact of the projectile
perature chamber. This facilitates the mounting of the specimen onto the specimen can be described as an edge impact.
and the collection of projectiles after the experiments. After the impact tests adhesive tape was used to remove chips
The temperature chamber is able to control and vary the test of paint that were delaminated but not separated completely from
temperature in the range of −40 ◦ C to +80 ◦ C. the panel. The extent of the damage was then determined by mea-
A lateral system is constructed for automatic loading of pro- suring the area of paint removal. Evaluation of the damage was
jectiles. This loading system is separated from the air supply done using an Olympus optical microscope equipped with the
system to avoid air leakage during test execution. It consists of a image analysis program analysis. To increase contrast between
loading table and two pneumatic plungers. Two sensors control the grey-coloured cataphoretic coat and the steel substrate, the
the entire loading process. damaged sites on the panels were etched with 5% nital before
The tester allows direct measurement of the projectile veloc- images were taken. The removed area was estimated for each
ity by two infra-red sensors. They are placed at the end of the individual coating layer.
tube in a small hole in the tube wall. The statistical Student t-test has been used to check whether
LabView software is used to control the test and to acquire the values for the area of paint removal of A3 and B3 formula-
experimental data, such as velocity and impact position. This tions differ significantly.
facilitates the automatic performance of a test series on a coated
panel.
In addition, the construction allows easy adjusting to other
projectile shapes and lengths, as long as the diameter remains
3.15 mm.

3. Materials and experimental

The tester was used to determine the influence of the

melamine crosslinker content in a water-borne primer formu-
lation on the resistance to stone chipping. Two three-layer
automotive paint systems, designated here as A3 and B3, were
tested. These systems consist of a cataphoretic coat, a primer
and a top coat. Additionally two two-layer coatings, compris-
ing a cataphoretic coat and a primer and designated here as A2
and B2 were investigated. The coating compositions and layer
thicknesses are summarized in Table 1. Fig. 3. Schematic view of impact under 45◦ .
244 M. Lonyuk et al. / Progress in Organic Coatings 58 (2007) 241–247

Fig. 4. Area of removed paint vs. impact velocity for three-layer systems A3
and B3 tested at +20 ◦ C; subscripts T, P and C denote the area of removed top Fig. 6. Area of removed paint vs. impact velocity for three-layer systems A3
coat, primer, and cataphoretic coat, respectively. The y-bars denote the 95% and B3 tested at 0 ◦ C; subscripts T, P and C denote the area of removed top
confidence interval for the area of removed top coat in formulations A3 and B3. coat, primer, and cataphoretic coat, respectively. The y-bars denote the 95%
confidence interval for the area of removed top coat in formulations A3 and B3.

4. Results and discussion

Fig. 5 shows a typical damage of a three-layer coating tested
The results of the impact tests performed at +20 ◦ C, presented at 28 m/s and +20 ◦ C. It can be seen that paint failed by two
as the area of paint removal versus the impact velocity, are shown different mechanisms. A small portion of the coating has been
in Fig. 4. To produce the significant difference 14 tests have been removed at the actual point of impact, which shall be referred to
performed at each impact velocity. It is found that the area of as a “cut-through” failure. At this point the plastic deformation
paint removal generally increases with increasing impact veloc- occurs on steel substrate. The cut-through area is surrounded
ity. For both three-layer systems the removed area of the top by a part of delaminated paint. The major part of the delami-
coat and the primer appeared to only differ slightly, while the nation occurred by loss of adhesion at the primer/cataphoretic
removed area of the cataphoretic coat was very small and almost coat interface. A smaller part of the failure was along the top
negligible compared to that of top coat and primer. The curves coat/primer interface.
for top coat and primer show two distinct velocity ranges with Three-layer coating systems tested in the intermediate impact
either an almost constant removed area or with a rapidly increas- velocity range, i.e. 15–25 m/s, show “cut-through” failure. At
ing removed area. The transition from the first to the second lower velocities only adhesion failure is observed between
range is found to be at an impact velocity of approximately primer and cataphoretic coat.
25 m/s. The results of impact tests at an impact angle of 45◦ at lower
A comparison between the two three-layer coating systems temperatures for the two three-layer coating systems are shown
shows that at room temperature and at impact velocities ranging in Figs. 6 and 7. A tendency of an increasing area of removed
from 7 m/s to 25 m/s the removed area was identical. However, top coat with impact velocity is observed. Significant differ-
at impact velocities above 25 m/s coating system B3, comprising ences in coating damage were found after performing seven
the polyester-melamine primer formulation 90:10, is observed tests at 0 ◦ C and only three tests at −20 ◦ C. The results obtained
to have a larger removed area. At an impact velocity of 30 m/s on coating system A3 reveals that at a temperature of 0 ◦ C the
the removed area of system B3 was almost twice as large as for removed area of both the top coat and the primer is larger than
system A3. at +20 ◦ C. Impact tests at a temperature of −20 ◦ C show that

Fig. 5. Typical damaged area in a three-layer system (A3 is shown here) tested at 28 m/s and +20 ◦ C seen in top view and in cross-section: (a) “cut-through” failure; (b)
cataphoretic coat surface (adhesional failure of primer/cataphoretic coat interface); (c) primer surface (adhesional failure of top coat/primer interface); (d) undisturbed
top coat surface.
 M. Lonyuk et al. / Progress in Organic Coatings 58 (2007) 241–247 245

Table 2
Results of the statistical Student t-test for the area of paint removal at impact velocity of 30 m/s of the top coat in A3 and B3 formulations at +20 ◦ C, 0 ◦ C, and −20 ◦ C
Test temperature (◦ C) Number Mean, x̄n S.E., sn error,
Standard t-Value, (x̄A − x̄B )/S.E. Tabulated t-value for
of tests S.E. = 2 /n ) + (s2 /n )
(sA A B B 95% probability

20 A3 14 2.27 1.09 0.33 4.94 2.16

B3 14 3.9 0.59
0 A3 7 2.94 1.69 1.142 5.09 2.45
B3 7 8.76 2.23
−20 A3 3 5.34 0.35 2.82 8.21 4.3
B3 3 28.51 4.88

the primer. This coating system shows a very low impact resis-
tance at low temperature, resulting in removed paint area of up to
28 mm2 at an impact velocity of 30 m/s. It is also observed that
the velocity above which a steep increase in damaged area occurs
shifts to lower values when the testing temperature decreases.
The observed increase in the area of removed paint with a
decrease in temperature can be associated with the viscoelas-
tic behaviour of the coating material, which can be expected
to show a more brittle response at lower temperatures. For the
temperature range investigated, the resistance to chipping of
coating system A3 proved to be better than that of coating system
B3.
The statistical results on impact tests for three-layer coating
Fig. 7. Area of removed paint vs. impact velocity for three-layer systems A3
systems are shown in Table 2. The calculated t-value for 13, 6,
and B3 tested at +20 ◦ C; subscripts T and P denote the area of removed top coat and 2 degrees of freedom exceed the tabulated values meaning
and primer, respectively. The y-bars denote the 95% confidence interval for the that the difference between the two samples at an impact velocity
area of removed top coat in formulations A3 and B3. of 30 m/s is significant.
The results on the resistance to stone chipping of the two-
the removed area of the top coat becomes larger than at the tem- layer coating systems A2 and B2, comprising different primer
perature of 0 ◦ C, but the removed area of the primer decreased formulations, tested at three temperatures, all at an impact angle
considerably, and was even smaller than at room temperature of 45◦ , are presented in Table 3. Only the removed primer is
(see Fig. 7). It was observed that coating A3 failed mostly under shown in this table. It can be observed that the removed area of
the contact area of the projectile by a “cut-through” mechanism, primer in these two-coating systems also increases with impact
while adhesional failure occurred only at the top coat/primer velocity. At a temperature of 20 ◦ C both systems showed an
interface. almost identical degree of damage. However, a distinct velocity
For coating system B3 a decrease in temperature causes an above that the primer damage rapidly increases, as observed
increase in the area of removed paint, both for the top coat and for the three-layer systems, is not found. Rather, the damaged

Table 3
Results of the impact tests of two-layer coating systems A2 and B2
Test temperature (◦ C) Coating system Area of removed paint and value of 95% confidence limit (mm2 )

12 m/sa 18 m/sa 23 m/sa 28 m/sa

20 A2 0.43 ± 0.15 0.6 ± 0.35 0.73 ± 0.22 0.77 ± 0.32

B2 0.42 ± 0.17 0.69 ± 0.3 0.88 ± 0.15 0.79 ± 0.3

Test temperature (◦ C) Coating system Area of removed paint and value of 95% confidence limit (mm2 )

7 m/sa 19 m/sa 26 m/sa 31 m/sa 36 m/sa 41 m/sa

0 A2 0 0.52 ± 0.45 0.63 ± 0.3 0.79 ± 0.1 0.87 ± 0.07 0.91 ± 0.2
B2 0.68 ± 0.74 1.23 ± 0.05 1.31 ± 0.5 2.33 ± 1.64 3.17 ± 1.44 2.57 ± 0.55
−20 A2 0.38 1.39 ± 0.5 1.44 ± 0.17 1.14 ± 0.77 0.9 ± 0.07 1.65 ± 0.19
B2 0.46 ± 0.89 1.18 ± 1.24 1.71 ± 2.56 2 ± 2.21 2.41 ± 2.61 4.2 ± 6.13
a Impact velocity.
246 M. Lonyuk et al. / Progress in Organic Coatings 58 (2007) 241–247

Fig. 8. Typical damaged area in two-layer systems A2 and B2 tested at +20 ◦ C: (a) “cut-through” failure; (b) cataphoretic coat surface (adhesional failure of
primer/cataphoretic coat interface); (c) undisturbed top coat surface.

area appears to be more or less linear dependent on the impact ber of automotive water-borne systems has been investigated.
velocity. From the results it is concluded that:
With decreasing temperature a difference in resistance to 4. At all test temperatures the stone chip resistance
stone chipping between coating systems A2 and B2 becomes of coating systems containing a primer with 20 wt.%
apparent: system B2 shows more primer removal. Typical dam- melamine crosslinker was better than that with only 10 wt.
aged areas for two-layer coating systems A2 and B2 are shown in % crosslinker.
Fig. 8. The primer in the A2 and A3 systems (see Fig. 5) showed 5. The damage due to impact increases with increasing impact
the same “cut-through” failure mechanism in combination with velocity at all test conditions. It was found that for three-
delamination. layer coating systems there is critical velocity above which a
For most test conditions, excluding tests at −20 ◦ C, and for steep increase in paint removal area is observed. This velocity
both two-layer systems the area of removed primer was observed depends on temperature: the velocity shifts to lower values
to be lower than that for the corresponding three-layer systems. with decreasing temperature.
In three-layer system A3 tested at −20 ◦ C the primer layer was 6. A decrease of the temperature leads to an increase of the area
less damaged than in two-layer system A2. This suggests that of removed paint.
in the three-layer system good adhesion between primer and 7. Coatings failure occurs by a combination of a “cut-through”
cataphoretic coat results in failure at the primer/top coat inter- mechanism and delamination at the interface between primer
face, thus preventing the primer from chipping. This is a more and cataphoretic coat.
favoured situation in view of the paint performance. For coating
system B3 tested at −20 ◦ C the lower adhesive strength between Acknowledgments
primer and cataphoretic coat resulted in crack propagation along
the primer/cataphoretic coat interface. This project is supported with a grant of Dutch Programme
The better overall performance of coating system A3 com- EET (Economy, Ecology, Technology) a joint initiative of the
pared to system B3 is thought to be due to the better impact ministries Of Economic affairs, Education, Culture and Science
resistance of the primer formulation containing 20 wt.% of and of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. The EET
melamine crosslinker. Further work on this point is necessary to Programme Office, a partnership of Senter and Novem, runs the
elucidate this. program. The authors thank dr.ir. Fred G.H. van Wijk, dr.ir. Cees
A. M. Vijverberg from Nuplex Resins Company for comments,
5. Conclusions suggestions and discussions on this study.

A single impact tester to analyse the stone chip resistance of

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