Spatial Distribution of Glossiness over the Surface of Polished Stoneware Tiles

摘要

The industrial process for polishing floor tiles requires several polishing stages in order to produce the desirable glossiness. This work intends to provide a comprehensive and quantitative description of the distribution of glossiness of porcelain stoneware tiles. The glossiness pattern generated by the polishing process over the surface of 20 tiles, from semi-finished to final polished tile, were presented in grayscale graphics, where each pixel is univocally associated with a portion of the tile surface. Significant differences of glossiness were registered within the surface of the same tile - especially the gloss values in the boundaries of adjacent tiles, which vary remarkably. A hypothesis was made in order to explain such fact, considering the variation of surface pressure during the polishing process.