Observation of drying process of multilayered paint using fOCT based on dynamic speckles

Abstract

Recently, a demand for the precise observation of a multilayered paint system have been increasing such as in car industry. However, conventional methods can observe only the surface condition of the paint. In this study, we propose a new method to observe a three dimensional drying process of the multilayered paint using functional Optical Coherence Tomography (fOCT). In this method, the dynamic speckles that appear in OCT signal were utilized. The temporal properties of the dynamic speckle is related to the Brownian motion of the scattering particles in the paint, and thus depends on the drying condition. Autocorrelation function of the speckle signal was calculated and its width, i.e., correlation length (CL), was used as a measure. In the experiment, two layer system consisting of different paints on the thin glass plate, and the drying process was observed for two hours. In the second layer exposed to the air, CL showed a monotonic increment indicating a steady progress of the drying process while in the first layer (deeper layer), CL decreased slightly for the first 50min. and then started to increase. This implies that drying process has been reversed due to the transport of the solvent from the second layer in the early stage. Such a complicated drying process of the multilayer system could also be confirmed from OCT signal image of the interface between the layers. This analysis was performed using the phase term obtained in the OCT interference signal with an accuracy of 0.1μm.