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The development of innovative solutions for the conservation and the protection of historic aircraft is a recent and important issue raised in the cultural heritage field and represents the goal of the PROCRAFT (Protection and Conservation of Heritage Aircraft) project. Assessing and documenting the constituent materials as well as their degradation state is necessary to determine and understand factors inducing aluminium alloy corrosion, in order to develop tailored conservation treatments and identify effective protective coatings. The first step of the project was the identification of the constituent materials of aircraft wrecks. Al-Cu-Mg alloys—Duralumin and Super Duralumin, with a higher content of Mg—were the most employed alloys for structural and non-structural parts. These materials undergo a wide range of alterations, amongst which pitting, exfoliation and galvanic corrosion. In the present work, results of the characterisation of wrecks from a North American Republic P-47D Thunderbolt, crashed in Italy in 1945, are reported and compared to wrecks from a French Breguet 765 Sahara n°504 64-PH, built in 1958. The constituent alloys resulted to be similar to the modern 2024 and 2017A alloy. In order to assess the representativeness of these modern alloys in simulating the corrosion behaviour of the historic ones, exfoliation susceptibility (ASTM G34) as well as non-destructive and destructive electrochemical tests in 0.1 M NaCl were carried out on both historic and modern alloys. These results contributed to the selection of representative substrates for the development of protective coatings as well as to the expansion of the dataset on composition and microstructure of historic Al alloys for aircraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multi-techniques for consistent determination of historical aeronautical paints composition. • Identification of the main fillers and pigments in the aeronautical paints of four nations: Germany, France, USA and Italy. • Nitrocellulose base-paint was traditionally applied on French and German WWII aircraft. • Study providing useful information for conservation and restoration. Aeronautics for military or civil applications effectively pushed scientists, engineers and industrial leaders to invent and produce increasingly efficient materials. Aluminium alloys are among the most important strategic materials used in aircraft manufacturing. Consequently, so are the protective coatings (primers and paints). After decades of burial, World War II (WWII) wrecks provide a tremendous amount of archaeological information on this period of intense technological research. In this article, the original protective coatings of ten samples collected on WWII wrecks and one collection aircraft were studied. Information was retrieved thanks to a multi-techniques approach: SEM-EDS, Raman spectroscopy and XRD to identify the nature of the mineral compounds (fillers and pigments) and FTIR, Py-GC–MS and NMR to identify the organic binders of the paints and primers. This information will help conserve this valuable 20th century Industrial Heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of protective coatings can significantly influence the essential physical properties of rocks used in building and decorative industries. This paper presents the results of laboratory tests demonstrating the positive effect of the protective coating Antipluviol S applied on a tuff from Tuscany in Italy, which is a weak volcanic rock of a very low strength and very high porosity. The efficiency of the coating was measured by absorption tests, standard uniaxial compressive strength tests and cyclic frost resistance tests. After the coating application, the water absorption decreased from 39.1% to 31.3% by total rock immersion at atmospheric pressure conditions. The water absorption only by capillary suction showed much higher efficiency of the coating. The change in the rock strength, resulting from the coating application, was less pronounced; the mean values rose from 5.8 to 6.8 MPa (17.2% increase). For all strength values are quite similar in both treated and untreated groups, as well as scattered within the groups, no relevance to the coating impact could be confirmed. But, even such a slight improvement of the monitored physical parameters has the effect of slowing down the rock’s weathering. This was proven by the results of the frost resistance test. Coated samples withstood all the standard 25 freeze-thaw cycles, whereas untreated samples began to disintegrate after the 17th test cycle. These findings can help the maintenance of the famous historic architecture of picturesque tuff towns of Tuscany suffering from weathering, and contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage. On the other hand, they showed how important such tests are when considering building stone import. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an assessment of surface consolidation and protection treatments used on selected archaeological monuments in Rome, Italy, during the 1980s. The author explains that research was done by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the Federation of European Chemical Societies (FECS), discusses the protective materials used, including an acrylic resin Paraloid B-72 and an inorganic consolidant Wacker OH, and assesses the condition of the ancient marble studied.