Surface Testing

Quality assurance is the most effective protection against “surprises” that nobody likes. For almost 100 years ERICHSEN develops testing and measuring instruments indispensable for surface inspection and therefore is closely connected to this industrial sector.

While 20 years ago users/producers were seemingly free to assess significant properties on the basis of simple judgement based on experience, today the overwhelming majority is interested in clear and controlled processes. Whereas this was generally applied for a long time already for processes in the industrially automated coating technology and production engineering for a long time already, today more and more smaller companies are specifically involved in the topic of ‘quality management’. This regards sub-contractors for the automotive industries as well as manufacturers of articles of daily use in general – independently of the size of the company. Thus, today, besides the clearly defined processes / operation sequences, also the necessity of testing has got an increasing importance compared with the situation some years ago.

To the traditional measured parameters in coating technology, namely “film thickness”, “adhesion” and “gloss”, the testing of the resistance of the coated surface to mechanical damage, namely the measurement of scratch or graze resistance and abrasion resistance have become essential for many applications.