I’d like to thank Dan for his series on UV curing of polymers.  As was pointed out, UV curing has many advantages over thermal curing in some applications.  Since I am a structure-property-process-property type of guy, the question is; how do you characterize UV curing of thermosets.  In the next couple posts we will discuss UV rheology methods and provide some key ... [Click to Continue...]

Guest Post by Dan Lamone Image Courtesy: coatingsworld.com Last week the relationship between UV curable resins and power densities was introduced; this week we will discuss UV measurement and how you can use these UV measurements to evaluate a curing process. While shopping for a UV measurement device, ask yourself the following questions: Do I need to measure ... [Click to Continue...]

Guest Blog Post by Dan Lamone Now that we’ve selected our bulb type and coverage area, we are now concerned with the amount of UV exposure to fully polymerize our resin. Our two key variables are energy density and power density. Photo Courtesy: Air Motion Systems, Inc. Most UV processes will evaluate energy density as energy / surface area, often in joules or ... [Click to Continue...]

Guest Post by Dan Lamone Designing a production process for UV curable resins requires production engineers to consider several main design variables: spectral output (wavelength), coverage area, energy density and peak irradiance (light intensity). This week’s post will focus on the first two variables while next week’s post will focus on energy density and power density. ... [Click to Continue...]

Guest Post by Dan Lamone While we have spent the past few weeks diving deep into the chemistry of UV curable resins, this post will begin our transition into production operations with UV curable resins. We have a little more chemistry to discuss but much of this post will focus on the production implications of cationic UV resins.  Image courtesy of Master Bond Monomer ... [Click to Continue...]