Development of rheological methods to investigate the viscoelastic behavior and stability of paints

Paints are complex colloidal suspensions that usually contain binders (resins), solvents, pigments and rheological modifiers. From production to applications, these raw materials should remain uniformly mixed and stable during pumping processes and storage, as well as after application with brushes, rollers, spray guns, etc. It is very important to know how the paint behaves under different deformation. Rheology is the study of the deformation and flow of matter. Thus, it can provide some quantitative information, such as yield stress, viscoelastic properties, shear thickening and shear-thinning behavior, which could be useful for the production plant and for establishing correlations between final properties and formulation parameters. Hence, rheological methods will help better control the paint quality. Therefore, the aim of this work is to develop rheological methods that will generate data that could be correlated with empirical test data used in the paint industry and used to guide the production and control the quality of paints. Different from previous work, solvent evaporation will be taken into consideration in order to better simulate the actual condition in this work. The performance of paint on surfaces with different texture and roughness will also be evaluated to better predict the paint behavior after application.

Faculty Supervisor:

Marie-Claude Heuzey

Student:

Changsheng Wang

Partner:

Industries Pépin Ltée

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

École Polytechnique de Montréal