Technical Advisory Boards

Climatic and Atmospheric Pollution Effects

Scope and Activities

The CEEES Technical Advisory Board for Climatic and Atmospheric Pollution Effects on Materials and Equipment is a platform for the exchange of information relating to interaction of the natural climate and air pollution on the performance of equipment and material. It operates at an international level on matters concerning the effects on materials, characteristics, standards, innovations and test procedures.

The aim of the TAB is to increasing knowledge in this application field for both members and national societies. It achieves the latter goal by supporting the national societies in writing handbooks and guidelines. It achieves the first goal by inviting other experts to the TAB meetings to give presentations about their research and development. Allowing TAB participants to make personal contacts and engage in thematic high relevant discussions. Frequently experts making such presentations originate from the country hosting the meeting facilitating improved interaction between CEEES and the National Society.

From the presentations and workshops given during the TAB meetings, the group has generated CEEES Publications which are available through the CEEES secretariat.

In addition to technical presentations the TAB acts as a focus for the review of new and innovative equipment as well as state of the art and new developments in environmental testing facilities.

The TAB organizes workshops and seminars or supports of them at a European level.

Current Topics and Tasks Addressed by the TAB

Issues that are current addressed by the TAB include;

Corrosion / Degradation issues – Consideration of the effect on materials of the pollutants and climatic conditions.
Characteristics – Consideration of materials and mechanics interaction in wide perspective.
Aging of materials – Ageing parameters and functions. Practical issue encompassed include how to take ageing of materials into account during equipment design and whether such consideration is necessary.
Requirement perspective – Encompassing issues related to creating climatic requirements for products from “raw” climatic data and the impact on standardization.
Applied issues – Takes in issues associated with producing better and more cost effective products by consideration of the effects of climatic and pollutant during the equipment design and verification process.

Future Activities and Work Items

Work under discussion for consideration in the TAB future work programme includes;

Numerical Simulation
Renewable Energy Equipment Testing
Testing of Micro Electrical and Mechanical Devices
Education of Environmental Engineering Youngsters
Review of Recommended Practices

Stimulation Of Common Projects (partly funded or self financed):

Examples of projects the TAB have been involved in initiating include;

EUREKA Proposal BESTPRODUCT TENEEST
COST Proposal for Lifetime Prediction for Polymers
Common Project Proposals in the Framework of the Commission
Proposals for the Long Life Learning Programme of the Commission

European Weathering Symposia

For more than 30 years, the Colloquia of Danubian Countries was the only period and independent meeting of experts in the field of natural and artificial ageing of polymers in Europe. Those colloquia covered a wide field of natural and artificial exposure as well as the of investigation of degradation and stabilisation of polymers. In those there was no conference fees but each attendee was expected to contribute to the meetings with an own presentation.

In 2000, the representatives of the countries participating in the colloquia took the decision to concentrate on topics related to service life prediction, to encompass topics such as ageing of final products, technical aspects of exposure, reference materials, general analyses of ageing and the correlation between results from natural and artificial exposure.

To get a broader basis it was agreed to rename the colloquia “European Weathering Symposia". The establish a solid foundation for the symposia links were established with the Confederation of European Environmental Engineering Societies (CEEES) who agreed to support the “European Weathering Symposia" as a new CEEES Symposium Series. CEEES, represented by the national German society GUS, became responsible for the organisation of future symposia and helped to reach more people interested in the important fields of weathering.