The Atlas Right Light™ filter, available from Atlas Material Testing Technology in May 2008, is expected to significantly improve weatherability testing. When combined with the company’s state-of-the-art Xenon-arc light technology, a quartz outer filter or a newly developed CIRA (coated infrared absorbing) outer filter, the new filter reportedly provides the closest full spectrum match to natural sunlight available.

The Atlas Right Light™ filter, available from Atlas Material Testing Technology in May 2008, is expected to significantly improve weatherability testing. When combined with the company’s state-of-the-art Xenon-arc light technology, a quartz outer filter or a newly developed CIRA (coated infrared absorbing) outer filter, the new filter reportedly provides the closest full spectrum match to natural sunlight available.

Recent applications done with the filter combination have shown that material degradation more closely matches that of end-use service environments. Additionally, since the cut-on to the short wavelength UV matches so well, experimenters can increase irradiance levels for greater acceleration without compromising correlation.

"The precise simulation of terrestrial sunlight, particularly in the short UV range, is even more critical for reliable weatherabilty testing of automotive coatings than originally thought," said Mark Nichols of Ford Motor Co. "Xenon light used in conjunction with the Right Light filter provides the appropriate ultraviolet spectrum for weathering of today's complex automotive coatings."

The ultimate goal of weathering instrument manufacturers like Atlas has been to match the natural sunlight spectral power distribution (SPD), especially in the short wavelength UV. It is most critical to match shorter wavelengths of the solar spectrum, which are higher in photon energy, because any mismatch is likely to cause anomalous test results.

An inner and outer Type S Borosilicate filter combination has historically been used to produce an SPD comparable to direct sunlight. The SPD produced by this combination is relatively close, and meets performance-based standards requirements for "daylight" filters, such as ASTM G155 and SAE J2527. The CIRA filter in combination with a soda lime outer filter has recently been offered as an improved match for Sunlight SPD. Though both of these combinations were good and represented the "best available," there were still deficiencies. The new filter combination overcomes those issues.

For more information, visitwww.atlas-mts.com.