What is gloss and how to measure it

Gloss is one aspect of visual perception. Considering the psychological impact of products on consumers, it is as important as color. Glossiness refers to the specular reflection of light from the object surface. Glossiness can be understood as the subtle “roughness” of an object’s surface. The smoother the surface is, the more “reflective” it is. The brighter the human eye feels, the higher the glossiness is. The industry that needs to measure glossiness is very wide, and glossmeter is generally used. Glossiness is a physical quantity to evaluate the ability of specular reflection of material surface.

It is defined as “surface property”, which makes objects look like shiny or shiny metal.
The glossiness of object surface will be affected by many factors, such as the smoothness after polishing, the quantity and type of coating used, and the quality of substrate.
The manufacturer constantly designs glossy products, such as highly reflective car panels, glossy magazine covers, satin black fashionable furniture, to maximize the attraction of consumers.
Glossiness is very important for products. Therefore, the glossiness value can be obtained through continuous testing of each product or different batches of products.
Gloss can also be used to measure the surface quality. For example, the glossiness of the surface coating decreases, indicating that the surface may need to be reprocessed; Other factors leading to the decrease of glossiness value include low viscosity of coating or insufficient quantity of surface coating.

It is precisely because of these factors, even from automobiles, printing, furniture to food, pharmaceuticals, electronic products, etc., that many manufacturing industries need to conduct gloss testing on products.

How is the gloss measured?
Gloss is measured by illuminating a certain amount of light on the object surface, and then quantifying the amount of light reflected. The test method of light angle and reflection amount is determined by the object surface and surface appearance.

Therefore, a proper angle shall be selected for measuring gloss. NHG268 glossmeter complies with ISO2813 and GB/T9754 (Chinese national standard), and the three angles can fully cover the gloss of all surfaces.

The unit of gloss is (GU), which can be traced back to the reference standards of BAM (Germany), NRC (Canada) and NPL (UK).

Medium gloss (general angle): 60 °
60 ° is the measuring angle applicable to all surfaces. It is also used as a reference angle for measuring surfaces with low gloss of 85 ° and high gloss of 20 °.

Low gloss: 85 °
To improve the resolution of low gloss surfaces. The gloss can be measured at 85 °. When the surface gloss value of the object measured at 60 ° is lower than 10GU, it is recommended to use the 85 ° angle for measurement.
When measuring different gloss textures or slightly uneven surfaces with 85 °, multi-point measurement is required to take the average value.

High gloss: 20 °
20 ° measurement angle can improve the resolution of high gloss surface. When the surface photometric value of the object measured with 60 ° is higher than 70GU, it is recommended to use 20 ° angle for measurement.
The angle of 20 ° (light path) is very sensitive to the phenomenon of fog shadow on the object surface. Because fog shadow is a special phenomenon of high gloss surface.

LISUN lauched Gloss meters AGM-580 are mainly used in the surface gloss measurement for paint, plastic, metal, ceramics, building materials. It conforms to the DIN67530, ISO2813, ASTM D523, JIS Z8741, BS 3900 Part D5, JJG696 standards and so on.

Lisun Instruments Limited was found by LISUN GROUP in 2003. LISUN quality system has been strictly certified by ISO9001:2015. As a CIE Membership, LISUN products are designed based on CIE, IEC and other international or national standards. All products passed CE certificate and authenticated by the third party lab.

Our main products are Goniophotometer, Integrating Sphere, Spectroradiometer, Surge Generator, ESD Simulator Guns, EMI Receiver, EMC Test Equipment, Electrical Safety Tester, Environmental Chamber, Temperature Chamber, Climate Chamber, Thermal Chamber, Salt Spray Test, Dust Test Chamber, Waterproof Test, RoHS Test (EDXRF), Glow Wire Test and Needle Flame Test.

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Tags：AGM-500PRO , AGM-580