Novel enabling techniques to quantify wet and dry coating properties

 
Many new coatings are being developed with the goal of improved hide, uniform color and smooth finish. The development of additive and coating technology to achieve these goals requires new measurement techniques and development of structure-property relationships. This paper describes novel techniques that were developed to augment traditional measurement methods with a goal of providing greater insight to facilitate the development and selection of rheological additives for improved final coating properties. These techniques include a) profilometry of dry paint films to quantify surface roughness and classify different roller patterns and b) assessment of time evolution of leveling in wet paint films using profilometry. The emphasis is to correlate data generated using these new techniques to traditional attributes such as sag, leveling and applied hide (contrast ratio).