Page 34 - Australasian Paint & Panel Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

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U
Industry Trends
PAINT&PANEL JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2019
BOTTLENECK CURE
UV REFINISH TECHNOLOGY PAVES THE WAY TO A FAST-TRACK APPROACH TO BODYSHOP REPAIRS SAYS AKZONOBEL.
V CURING IS A PROCESS TO
cure coatings by a chemical process initiated and sus- ed by UV energy. In less than a minute a coating is converted from a liq- uid to a solid. There are fundamental dif- ferences in some of the raw materials and
the functionality on resins in the coating. The UV cross-linking reaction can re- sult in a coating with vastly superior physical durability. Though coatings can be formulated to be hard for applica- tions such as flooring, they can also be made to be very flexible. Both types of coatings, hard and flexible, are used in
automotive and industrial applications. Conventional application equipment such as air-atomized spray guns can be used. However, instead of the vehicle or part going into a spray booth oven after colour/ clear coat application and solvent flash off, the coating is cured with UV en- ergy generated by the UV lamp in a man- ner that illuminates the coating with the minimum amount of energy required to
achieve a cure.
UVA and UVA LED technology is known
as the safest form of UV curing and can de- liver extraordinary value by providing su- perior production efficiencies and a supe- rior end product while improving profits. UVA LED produces virtually no heat at all so any heat sensitive parts such as plastics can be cured without deforming the part.
BENEFITS OF UVA LED CURING
UV curing is a key to productivity if the constraint (bottle-neck) in your process is a long cure time. Conventional 2K primer for instance can take 40 minutes to fully cure in a bake oven; even the best infrared systems will take 12-14 minutes to fully cure 2K primer.
Infrared curing consumes energy. Around 6,000 watts of energy is used to cure primer where TeslaCure UVA cur- ing equipment can cure Sikkens UV
primer in 30 seconds using only 100 watts of energy, so energy cost savings are of huge financial benefit not to men- tion the speed and process time savings.
ACCIDENT REPAIR INDUSTRY REFINISH UV CURING
AkzoNobel UV coatings have been innovators with regard to UV coating tech- nology. Firstly they developed their UV primer which is now used extensively around the world with outstanding speed of cure, excellent filling and sanding properties.
AkzoNobel Europe has recently launched commercially available UV cured clear coat for top coating vehicles. It is worth noting here that AkzoNobel’s UV primer is a single component product (1K) meaning that you do not add any hardener, whereas their UV clear coat is a 2 component product (2K) or more com- monly called dual cure.
The curing process for AkzoNobel’s dual cure UV clear coat is different to the
1K UV primer. With dual cure clear coat, the curing process is split into two steps: STEP ONE: After applying your UV clear coat, turn on the TeslaCure UVA LED (Large Area) curing device for 2 minutes then turn off the lamp:
STEP TWO: Let the UV clear coat react (cross link) for 6 minutes.
It is worth noting that the TeslaCure lamp has done its work in the first 2 min- utes – using just 2 minutes of power - so even when the lamp is turned off the UV clear coat is still in a chemical cross link- ing process for a further 6 minutes, after this the car is ready to assemble or polish.
UV COATINGS USED IN AUTOMOTIVE OEM
AUTOMOTIVE HEADLAMPS:
The specific automotive application where UV has become the standard technology is in the automotive forward lighting industry, where UV coatings have been used for more than 15 years and now command 80% of the market.
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