The conventional coating film tensile modulus test has been used for more than 30 years. During this period, specifications of the primary coating, or voice of the customer, have changed dramatically. For example, the modulus of primary coating has decreased about 3.5 times while the tolerance (range) of the modulus has decreased about 8 times.

Although several test quality improvement initiatives have been made to improve the test precision, the engineering limit of this test has been reached, preventing it from continuously serving as an important indicator of the primary coating performance. Compared to the conventional way of measuring the modulus by static mechanical testing, the Real Time Dynamic Mechanical Analysis test, a newer technique, has greatly improved the test precision by adopting much fewer quantitative and deliberate steps. According to our Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility study, the modulus test variation using the RTDMA method is only about one third of that by traditional modulus tests based on cured coating film.