Commercial application line operators, laboratory and customer service personnel working for powder coatings manufacturers, and even field engineers and application line designers have often relied on on-line trial-and-error methods and procedures to establish viable time and temperature data to assure that powder coatings are fully cured. This article offers a relatively simple formula to calculate the time-temperature dynamics for powder coating cure.
Technical data sheets issued by powder coatings manufacturers generally show only one single bake schedule, for example 10 minutes at 400¡ãF. However, engineers designing application lines and powder coating applicators need to consider cure-time schedules under different time-temperature conditions to optimize space, equipment, and process, to minimize costs, and to assure that the finished products meet the specifications set down by internal quality assurance and by the end user of the coated products.
