Quality assurance/quality control: test and verify

Companies making raw materials such as pure resins, sheet molding compound, bulk molding compound, prepregs, or filled resins, need to know that their materials meet rigorous quality standards. Do the materials meet inspection specs? Did the shipped product cure properly? In QA/QC, companies use dielectric cure monitoring to assess cure state during routine, sometimes daily, batch testing. These tests confirm that feed stock materials meet specifications for curing behavior before being transformed into end products.

By recording criteria including ion viscosity to indicate cure time, users can assess whether a batch cures according to specifications. If any parameter drifts outside set limits, companies can use this knowledge to help pinpoint the source of the deviation and fix the problem. Dielectric cure monitoring gives insights into cure state and material quality in real time and under real conditions—something that other thermal analysis techniques can’t do. The end results are improved product consistency, increased QA/QC process efficiencies, and cost savings.