Exposure of paper or board to a hostile environment, such as some types of radiation, elevated temperature, or chemical attack over a period of hours, may provide information concerning the natural changes that may occur in the material over a period of years. Hostile environments that have been used include exposure to dry heat, heat and moisture visible and ultraviolet radiation, and sulphur dioxide gas.
BS 6388-2 is identical to ISO 5630-4. BS 6388-2 specifies a procedure for heat treatment of paper and board in air at relatively high temperatures and the general procedure for testing for heat-treated material. BS 6388-2 is primarily intended for high purity papers such as are used for insulation in electrical equipment.
Note: BS 6388-2 does not contain any statement about the tests to be made on the paper. It is left to the parties concerned to determine which tests are appropriate for the type of paper being evaluated.
BS 6388-2 on accelerated ageing of paper and board is useful for:
Dry accelerated ageing of cellulose is much less sensitive and probably does not rank papers in order of stability as accurately as moist accelerated ageing. It is much simpler to use and may be adequate for many purposes, but moist accelerated ageing should be used where the greatest correlation with natural ageing is needed.
BS 6388-2 stipulates the technicalities such as related terms and definitions, test principle, apparatus, preparation of test pieces, sampling, preparation of test specimens, the procedure for heat treatment, the procedure for testing, calculation and expression of the results, and stating test report for evaluation of the type of paper.
BS 6388-2 helps to obtain inferences regarding the ageing qualities of paper by an accelerated ageing test and evaluates the effect of dry heat on the properties of paper and board.