New UV curing systems for automotive applications

Recent developments of new UV curable resins, which meet the high demands o f automotive applications (e.g. weather stability), in combination with a n ew lamp technology offer extremely fast drying of paints, giving complete c uring within less than 2 min tin some cases even within seconds). Since the capacity of the painting/drying booth is the bottleneck in most body shops and OEM lines, this new technology offers a remarkable time saving advanta ge to the customer. The new technical standard is presented by a dual cure system due to the advantages of lower volume shrinkage and curing of shadow areas. The change of mar and chemical resistance depending on the amount o f UV curable components in a one pack automotive clear coat is shown. The i nfluence of both - temperature and distance between the lamp and the painte d object has been investigated by the decrease of UV curable double bonds i n a given dual cure refinishing clear coat. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.