An epoxy resin powder coating composition usually comprises an epoxy resin with a hardener and a granular inorganic filler compounded thereto. This coating composition has been widely used as an anticorrosive paint for ships, vehicles, large-sized structures, and so forth because it exhibits excellent adhesion to members to be coated and also excellent anticorrosion properties.
The epoxy resin coating composition, however, has a disadvantage in that although a coating formed using the coating composition generally exhibits good impact resistance at room temperature, its impact resistance at low temperatures is unsatisfactorily low. In order to overcome the above defect, several methods have been proposed: a method in which the thickness of the coating is increased, a method in which the amount of the granular inorganic filler is increased, and a method in which a flaky inorganic filler is used in place of the granular inorganic filler.
The above methods, however, undesirably lower the flexibility of the coating. If the coating has a poor flexibility, cracks tend to develop therein during handling of members with the coating.