Discontinuity (Holiday) Testing of New Protective Coatings on Conductive Substrates

This standard provides procedures for high and low-voltage holiday detection of new, non-conductive coatings or linings applied to conductive (typically metal) substrates.

This standard was first issued in 1988. This revision has been prepared as a result of the required periodic review. The 2013 version had not been recently updated due in large part to concerns regarding the inability of the high-voltage spark testing voltage settings to be tied back to any scientific study or mathematical model. The “rule of thumb” of 100 volts per mil of coatings cannot be traced back to any foundational document. Significant shortcomings were seen in the field when this standard was utilized, resulting in many coating systems passing the high-voltage testing standard but failing prematurely in the field. A peer-reviewed paper was presented at the AMPP Annual Conference + Expo 2022 that provided test data and utilized Paschen’s Law and the breakthrough voltage of air to provide additional data for this.