Investigation of Automotive Detailing Products by Ellipsometry and Contact Angle Analysis

• Authors: F. Placido , R. Birney , J. Kavanagh
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Within the automotive detailing community, there is much discussion focusing on the application of waxes and sealants to enhance and protect paint, and there are a very large number of commercial products on the market. The general idea behind the application of such products is that a wax or sealant layer or layers can increase gloss and "depth of colour", provide protection against degradation by ultraviolet rays and also make it easier to keep the paint surface clean by shedding and repulsion of rain water. In this paper, the performance of several commercially-available automotive waxes and sealants is examined. In the absence of any available published work, we have used ellipsometry to determine the thicknesses of applied wax and sealant layers and have quantified the water beading effect by measuring the contact angles of water with the wax films.

Keywords

EN

81.40.-z; 68.03.Cd; 81.40.Tv; 81.65.Ps

Discipline

• 68.03.Cd: Surface tension and related phenomena
• 81.65.Ps: Polishing, grinding, surface finishing
• 81.40.-z: Treatment of materials and its effects on microstructure, nanostructure, and properties
• 81.40.Tv: Optical and dielectric properties related to treatment conditions

• Publisher: Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Acta Physica Polonica A
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 116
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 712-714

Dates

published

2009-10

Contributors

author

F. Placido

• Thin Film Centre, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK

author

R. Birney

• Thin Film Centre, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK

author

J. Kavanagh

• Thin Film Centre, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK

References

• 1. http://www.autopia.org/forum/index.php
• 2. http://www.detailuniversity.com/forums/
• 3. http://www.web-cars.com/detail/wax.php
• 4. D.W. Kwok, A.W. Neumann, Adv. Colloid Interface Sci. 81, 167 (1999)
• 5. Y. Shim, W. Okada, N. Mamedov, Thin Solid Films 509, 137 (2006)
• 6. H.G. Tompkins, E.A. Irene, Handbook of Ellipsometry, Springer, Heidelberg 2005, p. 264

Identifiers

DOI

10.12693/APhysPolA.116.712