ASTM International

Standard Test Method for Integration of Digital Spectral Data for Weathering and Durability Applications
 N G214

Annotation

This test method specifies a single relatively simple method to implement, common integration technique, the Modified Trapezoid Rule, to integrate digital or tabulated spectral data. The intent is to produce greater consistency and comparability of weathering and durability test results between various exposure regimes, calculation of materials properties, and laboratories with respect to numerical results that depend upon the integration of spectral distribution data.

Weathering and durability testing often requires the computation of the effects of radiant exposure of materials to various optical radiation sources, including lamps with varying spectral power distributions and outdoor and simulated sunlight. Changes in the spectrally dependent optical properties of materials, in combination with exposure source spectral data, are often used to evaluate the effect of exposure to radiant sources, develop activation spectra (Practice G178), and classify, evaluate, or rate sources with respect to reference or exposure source spectral distributions. Another important application is the integration of the original spectrally dependent optical properties of materials in combination with exposure source spectral data to determine the total energy absorbed by a material from various exposure sources.

The data applications described in 1.2 often require the use of tabulated reference spectral distributions, digital spectral data produced by modern instrumentation, and the integrated version of that data, or combinations (primarily multiplication) of spectrally dependent data.

Computation of the material responses to exposure to radiant sources mentioned above require the integration of measured wavelength dependent digital data, sometimes in conjunction with tabulated wavelength dependent reference or comparison data.