Automotive Ceramic Enamels Development Challenges

Joseph D. Stas

There are many challenges facing a supplier
of decorated automotive glass products. The
world-wide market is changing and is being driven
from lead-based materials towards bismuth and
zinc containing materials. OEM expectations have
motivated acid resistant paint development,
surface roughness standards, and new adhesion
testing for installation, encapsulation, and a variety
of attachments. Increased throughput requires
paints that can be fired at higher line speeds,
making the selection of screen printing mediums
critical. Multiple patterns with shorter runs demand
paints with wider firing windows to reduce paint
inventory. Routine processing concerns such as
color development, opacity, voids, firing, silver
migration, and effects on glass strength are being
more closely examined. Each of these issues
require enamel development in a period where
down-time must be minimized and more off-line
testing using statistically designed experiments is
required.

Full-Text Article [28 KB]