Mechanical properties of UV-coatings

UV-coatings are interesting alternatives for several fields of application, due to rapid curing properties and special properties of the resulting polymer films. Still a severe drawback of that class of materials consists of internal stress due to rapid curing and eventually due to post-curing in the phase of usage. Especially in combination with critical polymer substrates adhesion can be inferior. Insight is given in a study of the adhesion of UV-curing coatings on polyethylene as well as in an ongoing study of curing reactions of model UV-clearcoats. The goal of this study is to figure out mechanical behaviour of UV-clearcoats depending on curing parameters and the resulting conversion in different depths of the UV-coating film.