A new approach to investigate scratch morphology and appearance of an automotive coating containing nano-SiO2 and polysiloxane additives

Attempts have been carried out to verify whether gonio-spectrophotometry could be utilized as a new scratch testing approach to investigate scratch morphology and its effect on appearance of an acrylic-melamine clearcoat separately containing nano-silica or polysiloxane additives. The results of gonio-spectrophotometry/colorimetry illustrated that this new approach is capable of differentiating between plastic and fracture types scratches. Furthermore, this approach was found to be suitable for analyzing the self healing abilities of such coatings. The accuracy and reproducibility of such results were checked against the results of scanning electron microscope (SEM) and illustrated great potential as a new approach for such studies.