International. Krüss presented a completely new image evaluation algorithm for contact angles in the Advance software, during the last European Coatings Show 2017 in Nuremberg (Germany).
To analyze wetting and adhesion, the software detects the droplet shape and the interface between droplet and surface (baseline), even in the face of severe interference, which can be caused by light or strange shadows, for example. With conventional software, these cases make evaluation difficult, while Advance can almost always carry it out automatically, which makes the measurement of contact angles faster. In addition, the analysis becomes less dependent on the user, since manual intervention is no longer necessary.
The company explained that the effectiveness of the software becomes particularly noticeable with wetting measurements depending on the position, for example, when checking the homogeneity of a coating or cleaning process. In this case, the droplets are often dosed within a number of sample positions in a rectangular matrix. Therefore, several droplets rest on a line between the light source and the camera of the contact angle measuring instrument. Previously, droplets had to be removed in the course of measurement to ensure they did not cast problematic shadows. Advance's extremely robust image evaluation makes this step obsolete.
In many applications, such as quality control of glass cleaning processes, very flat droplets are formed as a result of samples with good wettability. This range between 1° and 10°, which was previously technically difficult to measure, is solved exceptionally well with the new algorithm. Advance is therefore able to detect the smallest inhomogeneities in the course of scheduled procedures.
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