Title: Correlation studies between visual perception and waviness measurements for coated surfaces

Authors: Paul Henshaw; Geethashree Hemashankar; Sudhir Paul

Addresses: Department Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, N9B 3P4, Canada. ' Department Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, N9B 3P4, Canada. ' Department Mathematics and Statistics, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, N9B 3P4, Canada

Abstract: This research study investigates the factors influencing the appearance of an exterior coated automobile finish as measured by the BYK wave-scan DOI instrument. Sets of 10 to 16 painted panels of three different colours; silver, white and blue were visually evaluated by 60 or 30 panellists of various demographic characteristics, who ranked the panels individually from best to worst. The median rank for each panel was correlated to a linear combination of the measured wave-scan values for that panel. The medium ranks of silver and white painted panels exhibited strong correlations (R² = 82% and 90%, respectively) with wave-scan parameters. Even though blue was the most preferred colour among the study group, the resulting model exhibited a weak correlation (53%) between rank and the wave-scan parameters. Further studies need to be conducted to establish a scientific method to obtain an acceptable value for BYK parameters.

Keywords: correlation; visual perception; painted surfaces; finish quality; wave scan; orange peel; waviness measurements; surface coatings; automobile industry; automotive finish; car body panels.

DOI: 10.1504/IJQET.2012.049684

International Journal of Quality Engineering and Technology, 2012 Vol.3 No.2, pp.139 - 157

Received: 08 Mar 2012
Accepted: 18 Apr 2012
Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

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