Accelerated aging test for weighted silk

Abstract

The rate at which silk, particularly weighted silk, will deteriorate on exposure to light, heat, and moist air cannot be predicted simply from the amount of weighting or other substances present on the silk. A laboratory test which will indicate the relative stability of silks is needed.The aging, as revealed by changes in breaking strength, of a variety of silk and weighted-silk cloths when stored in the dark, when exposed to the daylight received through a north window (natural aging), or to the radiation from thc glass-enclosed carbon-arc lamp under controlled conditions of temperature and relative humidity of the atmosphere (accelerated aging) was studied.Data on the accelerated aging of some typical silk dress fabrics were obtained.

Analysing the structure and glass transition behaviour of silks for archaeology and conservation

“…Historic silk objects have experienced complex ageing conditions that can be mimicked (to some degree), and thus studied through artificial ageing using UV irradiation or thermal treatments. For example, UV irradiation simulates the intensive energy exposures that textiles experienced during their lifetime, which enables reproduction of patterns comparable (and observable on short-term timescales) to that of textiles naturally aged over timescales of thousands of years [6][7][8]. Colorimetric analysis and tensile strength analysis [8][9][10][11] have previously been used to inform curators and conservators of the condition of degraded silk samples.…”