Energy Efficiency, VOC Emission Reduction, and Product Quality Control of Polymeric Coatings in Automotive Coating Development

Curing of polymeric coating is a key manufacturing step in automotive coating development. In the curing process, crosslinking reactions take place within very thin layers of basecoat and clearcoat films. The reactive drying operation consumes a large amount of energy, which provides radiation heat and convection air flows. As the coating materials contain different types of solvents, VOC emission is unavoidable in production. Therefore, how to characterize process performance, product quality, and waste emission becomes a major concern in coating systems.
In this paper, we introduce a multiscale modeling and simulation method to characterize the coating curing process. The model allows to quantify macroscale panel heating, solvent removal, film thickness changes, and mesoscale cross-linking reaction and elastically effective crosslink density. The operation is optimized to minimize energy consumption and VOC emission, and ensure product quality. The case study on solvent-borne and water-borne coatings will demonstrate methodological effecacy.