Case study : ski safety netting

Using a QUV accelerated weathering tester, a leader in the ski safety netting industry conducted laboratory UV exposure testing on two commonly used netting materials in the industry: nylon (used in their own netting formulation) and polyethylene (used by a major competitor).

In their first study, they exposed the netting samples in their QUV tester with UVA-340 lamps to a common cycle of 8 hours of UV at 60°C, and 4 hours of dark condensation at 50°C.  After only 500 hours of testing, the company found that the nylon had lost only 12% of its strength, while the polyethylene had lost more than 90% of its strength.

With further testing and comparisons to extensive field data, the company was able to:

• Show significant advantages in durability between their safety netting versus competitors’ products;
• Determine that 1250 hours of accelerated weathering exposure was comparable to 5 seasons of use in Canada for service life predictions
• Leverage this knowledge to enter a completely new market segment.