ITRODUCTION

 This webinar is based on the results of one of many failure analyses that I have performed concerning coating failure resulting from
improper use of a high voltage holiday detector.
 In researching the cause of the failures, I determined that current industry requirements and guidance related to high-voltage holiday
testing are both vague and contradictory
 This webinar will identify the contradictory guidance and recommendations which ultimately resulted in the coating failure.
INTRUCTION

 Why do we worry about high-voltage holiday testing damaging an otherwise acceptable coating or lining?
 If the voltage setting of the test instrument is too high, the applied voltage will exceed the dielectric strength of the coating or lining layer
and burn a hole in the coating or lining film
o In other words, the test will become destructive
DEFINITIONS

 Before we start, where did the term “holiday” come from?

DEFINITIONS

 The term “holiday” related to coatings dates to the 18th century English shipyards
 The process of caulking ship hulls and decks was then referred to as “paying” and the workers who performed the paying were called
“payers”.
DEFINITIONS

 Hot, bituminous paying compounds were very nasty to work with, particularly since minimal worker PPE was available and/or use
 As a result, payers were always looking for a way to take time off (such as a religious holy day)
Definitions

 Shipyard inspectors, when they found a visible gap in the joint sealing would say “looks like the payers took a holy day”
 “Holy day” was soon combined into a Middle-English slag term (“haligdaeg”) which translates in modern English to “holiday”
Definitions

 There are disagreements among today´s standards concerning what constitutes a coating or lining “holiday”
 These disagreements contributed significantly to the failure that we are discussing today”
Definitions

 Referring to “Definitions” in a standard which is used worldwide (NACE SP0188, “Discontinuity (Holiday) testing of new protective
coatings on conductive substrates”)
o Holiday: A discontinuity in a protective coating that exposes unprotective surface to the environment. In this standard, a term
used interchangeably with discontinuity”.
Definitions

 Also contained in the definitions section of NACE SP0188-2006 is:

o “Holiday Detector: A device that locates discontinuities (holidays, ed.) in a coating applied to a conductive substrate”.
Definitions

 Another widely used consensus standard (ASTM D5162-15 “Standard Practice for Discontinuity (Holiday) Testing of Nonconductive
Protective Coating on Metallic Substrates”) defines “holiday” as follows:
o “3.1.2 Holiday, as used in this standard, n-a term that defines a discontinuity”.