Ultrasound measurement of exterior wood coating thickness

Abstract The present paper deals with the measurement of coat thickness on wood using an ultrasonic measurement method. Exterior wood coatings (waterborne acrylate dispersions) with coating film thickness between 80 – 115 μm were examined. The non-destructive film thickness measurement used a Sursonic ultrasound measuring device, enabling measurement of the thickness of thin films on non-ferromagnetic and simultaneously non-conductive materials. The device also enables measurement of very thin layers of coating films, where the transit time of an ultrasound pulse through the film is shorter than the time width of the pulse. The accuracy of measurement using this measuring device was determined; destructive measurement using a light microscope was chosen as a reference measurement method. Differences in the results measured using the destructive and non-destructive methods were recorded; nevertheless, in most cases, these differences are smaller than the uncertainty of measurement using the light microscope. It can be concluded, therefore, that the results of the two compared methods match over the entire range of thickness of 80 – 115 μm. The largest differences in the measurement readings from the destructive and non-destructive methods were identified in the range of 97 – 103 μm