Impact Performance of Roofing Tiles

More than any other exterior surface a building's roof is the one that is exposed to the most impacts from weather-driven objects such as tree debris and ice. Roof tiles cracked by impacting objects will allow moisture to penetrate and decay the underlying structure resulting in costly repairs. Arbitrarily increasing the tile thickness can improve impact performance; however designers must then consider the additional weight and cost of materials inherent in this simplistic approach Impact performance at both high and low energies, need to be accurately quantified in order to optimize the design of the tiles.

We were recently asked by a supplier of synthetic roofing tiles to assist them in choosing an instrumented impact system that could be used to perform low energy tests to ascertain how much damage may occur to their products. The customer supplied us with several samples of two different styles of tiles that they manufacture.