Effective online gloss measurement as part of a closed loop production control

 
Industries like the manufacturers of laminates, parquet floors, adhesive decorative coatings, paper, foils, coil coated metals and many more have high requirements on the optical appearance, most of all the gloss of their final products. Often the gloss has to be matched to other components or batches so a homogenous reproducible gloss has to be achieved. Especially on the high end of the product range the demands are very high and manufacturers sometimes face costly claims for damage. Where expensive raw materials are used the reduction of reject rates by early detection of optical deviations is highly desirable. So it is essential to monitor gloss during the coating process. With handheld systems only the last few centimeters of a finished rolled up product can be measured whereas an online system can monitor the quality of the entire product continuously.