Study on surface roughness and gloss of interior design materials

Summary form only given. Various kinds of polymers are used for architectural design materials, because of their light weight, smooth and flat surface, easiness to be handled, and low cost. The surface gloss is very important for keeping harmony with furniture and interior decorations. A kind of thermoplastic polymers is chosen for this use. Generally, gloss is controlled by surface roughness in the order of the wavelength of visible light. To exhibit different surface roughness several kinds of inorganic particles are added to the polymer samples. Surface shape of those sample polymer pieces is determined by a stylus profilometer and an optical interference microscope. One can determine the gloss in terms of reflectance ratio at two angles (60/spl deg/ and 85/spl deg/, for example). Surface quality is dominated by the spatial frequency of surface profile, average roughness, and peak curvature, and quantization of interference microscope image is useful to classify the surface quality. The best surface for interior design materials shows fine-grained delicate surface with low and uniform reflectance at any angle.