The production of industrially coated wood cladding has been strongly increasing in Scandinavia during the last years. In the beginning of this development, industrial coating processes included solely the application of pigmented primers; these however provide only a short protection of the wood surface and the application of a top coat is required during the first 6 to 12 months after mounting the cladding boards. In recent years, the trend has been going to an industrial application of several coats to extend the maintenance interval for repainting. The Norwegian company Gausdal Bruvoll SA is currently starting up Scandinavia’s largest and most modern plant for industrially coated cladding, and aims to implement an advanced process control system that 1) enables automated monitoring and documentation of process and product properties, and 2) provide input data for multivariate analysis and prediction models that will contribute to process and product optimization. The development of this inline quality control system is subject to the ongoing research project KonTre (2017-2019). During the first project year, KonTre’s consortium has mainly worked in laboratory scale to develop, adapt and test appropriate measurement systems for in-line control in Gausdal Bruvoll’s new coating line. The work dealt with non-destructive methods to determine spraying and color failures, coating film thickness, microfoam, wood moisture content, and sub-surface temperature in cladding. The present paper describes the development towards industrial coating application on exterior wood cladding in Scandinavia during the last years and discusses the feasibility of using thermal optics for in-line film thickness measurements.

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