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Brighton Science Blog
Topic: Painting & Printing Processes
The Best Way to Qualify a Wash Method for Your Manufacturing Process
Parts washers are heavy-duty, hardworking machines that have become irreplaceable staples in automotive andmachined part manufacturing processes. As manufacturing processes have become more sophisticated, the industries using parts washers have expanded to includenot only industrial metals and...
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Posts by Topic
How to Measure Contact Angle on Convex and Concave Surfaces
Historically, accurately measuring contact angle on concave and convex surfaces has been a challenge. The typical method used to measure contact angle on these types of surfaces has been with a benchtop goniometer. The challenges arise from the way goniometers measure contact angle—from a...
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The Solution to Costly Aircraft Paint Adhesion Failure
The importance of understanding surface quality and being able to measure it in an accurate, reliable, and demonstrable way is important for ensuring a high-quality finish and, ultimately, a high-quality product. Any manufacturer that is not able to do this increases their risk of producing...
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Meet Brighton Science's Chief Scientist, Giles Dillingham
A Deep History in Materials Science Founder and Chief Scientist of Brighton Science, Dr. Giles Dillingham's fascination with the connections between the invisible (the molecular structure of the world around us) and the perceivable (the properties and behavior of materials and objects) stems from a...
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Using an XPS to Understand Surfaces Critical to Adhesion
In today’s blog post we’ll be highlighting our lab’s capabilities. With the help of Rose Roberts, Ph.D., Senior Custom Applications and Materials Engineer, we’ll complete an overview of our x-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS), one of our more complex tools, and how we use it to research the...
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What is the Difference Between Surface Free Energy and Surface Energy?
When it comes down to it, this is another purely semantic question much like the one we dealt with in another article comparing the terms “surface tension” and “surface energy.” Surface free energy is free energy in a particular space - the surfaces of materials. Free energy, in its most...
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What is the Difference Between Surface Tension and Surface Energy
Using adhesives in manufacturing is becoming increasingly common for building everything from massive machines to everyday tech devices. But companies' reliance on the science of adhesion to make sure their products work perfectly and look marvelous didn’t start there. In the centuries since the...
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Maintaining Consistent Adhesion Quality for Shoe Manufacturers even with Material Changes
There are a lot of reasons why sneakerheads love the shoes they covet. Athletic shoes have become one of the most sought-after clothing items due to their aesthetic appeal but also because of the ever-evolving material innovations of shoe manufacturers. Shoes were once ubiquitously leather or firm...
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Better Consumer Electronics Reliability: Coatings and Adhesives
In a recent study conducted by Instrumental, the top ten most common manufacturing defects were examined. The number one defect that manufacturers fight against is a deficiency in glue. It’s a simple fact that electronic products are relying on adhesive bonding far more than mechanical fasteners in...
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Process Control Innovations for Card Manufacturers
We’ve all experienced the disappointing (and kinda embarrassing) moment when we’re at a register trying to buy armfuls of tortilla chips and salsa, and the point-of-sale card reader screams out that an error has occurred. For credit and debit card manufacturers, these are the moments they want to...
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Using Data to Improve Ink Adhesion to Polymer Film
One of the most frustrating aspects of experiencing a problem in manufacturing isn't necessarily the issue itself, but rather, it's the difficulty of accurately determining and communicating what the problem actually is. In the case of blown and extruded polymer films (and many other manufacturing...
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Surface Analyst vs. Goniometer Measurements
The Study of Goniometer Measurements Contact angle goniometry is the study of the characterization of liquid/solid interactions. The first benchtop goniometer designed at the NRL (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory) served as a monumental advance with a way to measure contact angles to measure surface...
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How to Control Additive Blooming in Polymer Films
We all take the ease of peeling open, and resealing packs of double stuff Oreos for granted. The plastic packaging that maintains the freshness of our favorite snacks and foods has become so ubiquitous it doesn’t even register as existing, until we try to open that hotdog pack with our bare hands...
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Cleaning Strategies for Great Adhesion
Cleanliness in manufacturing gains avid devotees all the time. Once the importance of cleanliness is grasped, it’s nearly impossible to think about manufacturing processes without considering the pervasive impact cleanliness has on every aspect and feature of the process. Cleaning as a means to...
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Why Surface Cleanliness is Crucial for Electronic PCBs
Defining “clean” is actually more complicated than it sounds. Cleanliness can be in the eye of the beholder (I mean, we all had a college roommate who swore they were tidy, but let’s be honest…) and it can also be calculated and precisely managed to the nth degree. In regard to pcb cleanliness for ...
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Conformal Coating Failure Caused by Poor Surface Cleanliness
Electronic components consist of many exposed and delicate pieces that leave them vulnerable. A lot is relying on these fragile parts to function without fail. From implantable medical devices to navigational equipment and from sensor packages in cars to cell phones, the manufacturers of...
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Is Roughness as Important as Surface Cleanliness to Adhesion?
When the subject of material surfaces comes up among manufacturing engineers the discussion usually centers on the physical attributes of that surface; the surface topography or morphology, or more simply - the surface roughness. Preparing material surfaces for assembly, coating, painting or...
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The 3 Crucial Elements for High-Performance Adhesion in Manufacturing
Excellent adhesion relies on the manufacturer’s ability to understand and control three distinct yet interrelated elements. In manufacturing, adhesive bonding takes many forms, but the fundamental principles of adhesion are always the same. Even if the application is metal joint welding, Parylene...
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Fundamentals of Adhesion & Why 3 Molecular Layers Matter
Adhesion is a powerful phenomenon that can hold massive structures together and fuse microscopic compounds. It is also extremely dependent upon delicate and fragile processes to succeed. In manufacturing, adhesive bonding takes many forms but the principles of adhesion are always the same. Even if...
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Best-practice Surface Preparation Processes for New Products
New Product Development is an essential component to the successful growth of companies who always challenge themselves to improve and innovate. Getting this design stage right is pivotal in that it sets in motion everything the product will be and how well it will perform. Yet, many new products...
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What is the Best Fast & Accurate Alternative to Dyne Testing?
Dyne solutions have been the most common method of quality-checking material surface cleanliness for decades. Their ubiquity and low cost have led them to be heavily relied upon by manufacturers even though they are imprecise, destructive to surfaces, and harmful to the user. The science behind...
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How to Ensure a Manufacturing Surface is Clean Enough for Adhesion
Cleanliness and adhesion go hand-in-hand. If you’re looking for an adhesion process to be successful then you are also absolutely interested in cleaning the materials involved in the application. In order to get the most out of your cleaning operations it’s imperative to know three things: What...
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How Surface Quality Devices Can Validate Adhesion Specs
Regulatory specifications in manufacturing exist to ensure that the highest quality, safest and most useful products are created. These are devised internally through research and development testing to meet customer demands and through external regulatory bodies to protect consumers and public...
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Can a Surface Science Lab Ensure Adhesion in Manufacturing?
Manufacturers utilize research and design laboratories all the time. To scale new products up to the production line, years of toiling in testing labs is done to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch once production starts. There are some areas crucial to adhesion processes that these R&D...
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Corona Treatment Concerns You Need to be Taking a Closer Look At
Disclaimer: this article is NOT about COVID-19, it is about a surface treatment process for better adhesion in manufacturing. If you're looking for information about cleaning, here's an article that discusses the difference between biological cleanliness and chemical cleanliness: COVID-19:...
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Deck the Hulls: Preparing Ship Hulls for Coating and Painting
Manufacturing a product to withstand the environmental stresses of wind, rain, and sediment is challenging enough. But, when you add saltwater and wave action to the mix, the detrimental threat of corrosion increases significantly. A coating adhesion test is important for quickly testing a surface...
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Brighton Science's Exceptional Lab: Experts in Advanced Materials and Processes
Brighton Science Lab Capabilities The history of Brighton Science (formerly BTG Labs) is rooted in adhesion research. Originally a development lab, Brighton Science specialized in plasma polymerized coatings. The engineers worked with coatings containing corrosion-resistant and anti-microbial...
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Automotive Applications Series: Polymer Painting and Bonding in Automotive Manufacturing
Polymers are some of the most common base materials used in automotive parts. Polypropelenes, Polyolefins, and ABS plastics are used in dashboards, door panels, bumper fascias, liftgates, sensors, and increasingly exterior doors and fenders. A polymer is a low surface energy material that typically...
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