Determining a material’s proper coating or plating thickness is essential to ensuring both its optimal performance overall and its durability over time. Additionally, there are aesthetic reasons for having a proper coating thickness on such things as decorative anodized aluminum items.
How we measure these thicknesses varies depending on a number of factors, with the makeup of both the coating material and its substrate material (the underlying, base material) being chief among them.
We use modern technology to get these measurements using instruments specifically designed for nearly every particular coating and substrate.
Most handheld measuring devices will use either a magnetic induction or a phase-sensitive eddy current method to determine a coating thickness, depending on the makeup of the materials. These two methods are non-destructive and highly accurate for their respective purposes. Other methods of measuring include coulometry (a destructive test method) and X-ray analysis.
X-ray analysis in particular can be extra useful as a material analysis tool, determining not only a material’s thickness but also its chemical makeup. There are, furthermore, handheld instruments that specialize in determining a material’s electrical conductivity or, if steel, its ferrite content, which is useful in determining the strength of welds.
Other instruments can determine a coating surface’s hardness or elasticity using a method called nanoindentation, which evaluates how much force a surface can take before indenting.
Think of all of the appliances, tools, fasteners, toys, household goods, building materials, and industrial products we have today that would compromised – or not even workable – if we didn’t have the ability to precisely measure both their coating thicknesses and their material makeup.
It would be a rather expansive list.
Thankfully, though, we have the tools and technology to get these jobs done. And we’re living in a better world because of it.
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