The drying and curing rates of coatings are critical to the performance and appearance of the coating and the efficiency of the manufacturing process. Processing of a coating often involves spraying the coating onto the metal substrate to be coated, allowing some of the solvents to evaporate, and then curing the coating onto the substrate at an elevated temperature. Previous work has shown that dielectric sensors mounted on the substrate can be used to monitor the drying and curing process of acrylic automotive coatings under simulated processing conditions. In actual manufacturing, this preocess is automated into a continuous process on a conveyor system where the parts are sprayed, pass through a drying chamber, and then into the curing oven. This paper discusses a new dielectric neasurement system that can travel through the process along with the sensor. This eliminates the need for long extension cables and enables the drying and curing behavior in production scale processes to be monitored. Data collected with the new dielectric measurement system is discussed.
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