Get the Phoenix Factor!
Total Cure Confidence from One Number
Monitoring what is happening inside your cure oven is critical to understand how your paint or powder coating operation is working. PhoenixTM understands the challenges you face running your operation, to not only get the coating cure quality you need but keep your oven technology up and running as economically as physically possible. With energy costs and ever-increasing labour costs you need to make your operation run efficiently and make those costs savings wherever possible. To help you get the best out of your oven PhoenixTM offer a monitoring toolbox to suit your specific needs.
The PhoenixTM Thru-process temperature profiling systems provide you with an accurate record of what temperature your product experienced in the cure oven. Thermal View Finishing software provided with the system converts the raw temperature profile data into meaningful information. The software is designed with all the analysis and process documentation tools to fully interpret and communicate paint cure performance.
Historically paint cure confirmation has often been restricted to calculating the time at temperature of the product and comparing the measured data to the recommended cure schedule of the coating supplier. This approach although simple, can give misleading information, as it does not use the entire temperature profile data. The chemical cure reaction rate is temperature dependent so temperatures above and even below the target cure temperature can contribute significantly to the total cure.
To provide an accurate method to quantify cure PhoenixTM have developed its own mathematical index of cure calculation referred to as the Phoenix Factor. The Phoenix Factor gives the paint technician a perfect numerical tool to easily and accurately confirm that the cure process is working to the coating supplier specification. This guarantees quality of cure and eliminating rejects or need for rework and corresponding cost. Irrespective of the profile shape, as all profile data is utilised. It’s as simple checking for a correct consistent Phoenix Factor.
Based on the time temperature relationship of the coating cure reaction the level of cure (degree of cross linking), so coating cure performance, can be accessed. Inputting the coating suppliers cure schedule information, the software automatically creates a best fit ISO cure line to the target data with a choice of line fitting algorithm. Appling the ISO cure curve time temperature relationship the combined raw temperature profile data is converted into a single equivalent cure time at a single target temperature. The equivalent cure time is then compared to the original coating supplier specification to generate an easy to interpret single cure index value.A Phoenix Factor value of 1.00 is a perfect match between profile temperature trace data and target coating supplier specification. Less than 1.00 is under cure and greater than 1.00 over cure. Applying the Phoenix Factor calculation, the success of the oven cure operation can be quantified accurately and instantly allowing reporting both numerically and graphically against predetermined Pass / Fail QA tolerances.
Feature benefits of the Phoenix Factor index of cure calculation.
- Cure Fitting Options (x3) – accurately fit constant cure curve to coating supplier specification.
- Full graphical display of constant cure line fit to cure data.
- Use up to x10 cure schedules to create constant cure curve.
- Constant cure curve created with full line fit regression statistics confirming best fit.
- Calculation of “Equivalent Time” against target cure schedule.
- Graphical Phoenix Factor Chart – PASS / FAIL QA Traffic Light Simplicity.
- Phoenix Factor parameters stored in a Coating library for easy access and use with different coatings.
Employing the Coating Library feature, for each coating a library file can be generated. All necessary parameters for the application of Phoenix Factor analysis are stored in the coating file, removing the need for tedious parameter entry each run. Backed up with efficient local service and technical support, the PhoenixTM Finishing systems are a valuable and important addition to any paint process engineers coating QA tool kit.