Accelerating the photodegradation of commercial polymeric materials has great practical importance in the weathering community. However, questions exist as to whether high radiant flux exposure results can be extrapolated to in-service exposure levels. Based on the reciprocity law, the photoresponse of a material is dependent only on the total energy to which the specimen is exposed, and is independent of the exposure time and the intensity of the radiation taken separately. An experiment to validate the applicability of the reciprocity law for polymeric coatings has been carried out using the NIST integrating sphere-based ultraviolet (UV) weathering device. A nonpigmented, non-UV stabilized acrylicmelamine coating was exposed to six different UV radiation intensities ranging from 36 W/m 2 to 322 W/m 2 , and in the spectral region between 290 nm and 400 nm. Chemical changes in the coating due to UV exposure were measured with transmission Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and UV-visible spectroscopy. Using two dose-damage models, the reciprocity law photoresponse for this polymeric system was verified for different photodegradation mechanisms, including chain scission, oxidation, and mass loss. P olymeric materials used in an outdoor environment are subjected to a wide variety of stress factors, including solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation, temperature, and moisture. The physical and chemical degradation resulting from outdoor exposure is known in the materials community as weathering. For commercially viable materials, weathering is usually a slow and lengthy process, often taking five years or longer before a critical performance property is deemed to have failed. These long testing periods are costly to the manufacturer and are also a barrier to innovation and the timely introduction of new products into the market. A need exists for developing exposure strategies that can accelerate weathering and yet permit valid extrapolations or predictions of service life from accelerated levels to in-service exposure conditions. Although temperature and moisture acting alone are important stress factors in the degradation of many materials, UV radiation, in conjunction with temperature and moisture, plays a dominant role in the photodegradation of polymeric materials. It is well known that polymer photodegradation can be accelerated by increasing the radiant flux to which the material is exposed. The law of reciprocity states that the photoresponse of a material is dependent only on the total energy involved and is independent of the intensity (or irradiance) of the radiation and the exposure time taken separately. 1 Experiments in which the photoresponse of a material is measured as a function of irradiance levels are commonly called reciprocity experiments.Over the last 100 years, the use of high irradiance exposures has been successfully employed by the biological, medical, and materials weathering communities. In materials weathering, for example, high solar irradiance field exposure devices have been reco...