Despite great efforts and high expenditure in quality assurance, serious quality problems in the area of painting are sometimes not detected in time, even in the automotive industry: According to NHTSA.gov, more than 25 car models from different manufacturers have had to be recalled in significant numbers since 2000 due to poor paint quality. The later quality deficiencies or defects in a coating are detected in the process chain, the higher the negative business impact - this is not a new finding.
However, establishing an inspection process that is capable of providing criteria quickly and reliably in the production line of a paint store, beyond the experienced expert's eye, to determine whether a surface actually meets the specifications or whether expensive rejects are to be expected at the end of the process, is not a trivial undertaking. At the suggestion of the automotive industry, a mobile measuring instrument based on coherence scanning interferometry has been developed that enables all phases of a coating process to be characterized quickly and in production. The SurfSpec 4D measuring instrument is distributed by the company Soliton for the German-speaking region. It is a compact system weighing only about three kilograms that can be positioned by hand.
Read the article about it in the September issue of mo or here freely accessible on oberflaeche.de!