The Appearance Standard in the Automotive Industry
| micro-wave-scan - the solution to evaluate the harmony between car body and add-on parts |
| Structure spectrum - the fingerprint of aurface appearance. |
| The paint finish of a car has two main requirements: protect the surface underneath and enhance the quality of the overall product. Eye catching finishes should not only have a beautiful and rich color, but look like a mirror “high gloss and perfectly smooth” - and of course not diminish over time. |
| Therefore, automotive companies define color and appearance standards to specify an acceptable finish. Especially important is the uniformity - it must be consistent over the entire vehicle. Critical is the uniformity within the horizontal and vertical panels and the harmony between car body and add-on parts. That means how well do the add-on parts – such as bumpers, spoilers, door handles, fuel doors and decorative trim - match the adjacent body panels. Differences are especially obvious on models with zero gap styling. |
| Uniform appearance on the entire car stands for high quality. |
| In the past the appearance was described with a variety of terms such as glossy or brilliant or dull – wet look or snap – orange peel – smooth. Today the wave-scan is the standard to objectively quantify appearance of the painted body and off-line painted parts at all major car companies. |
By assigning an objective value to the appearance quality lengthy and heated discussions between automotive producers and their suppliers do no longer exist.
In addition, the measured data can be used for trouble shooting to improve the quality. The wave-scan DOI and micro-wave-scan measure various structure sizes to evaluate the perception of the appearance quality – close up and at a great distance. The obtained measurement results, the so-called structure spectrum, support process and material engineers to optimize material properties and application parameters. This achieves the highest possible quality. |
