Performance Testing of Coatings Using a Reflecting Sensor in a Laser Reflection Photometer

Short term testing of materials is always required and therefore new test methods are still under development. Corrosion is a severe problem and coatings, specially organic coatings are widely used. Up to date materials give a guaranteed protection period of more than 5 years and so the performance of such materials are quite good. Nevertheless it is necessary to develop new or modified coating materials due to new legal situation or customer requirements. Our new short term test for coatings using a vapor deposited metal film on a glass plate as a sensor allows to determine the performance of coating materials. Furthermore this new test can also be applied in the case of corrosion studies. A corrosive environment attacks the metal film and causes its dissolution, whereby the required time until the dissolution gives a measuring value for the corrosiveness of the media.