Specular Gloss Meter | How to Measure the Gloss of Mattee Ceramic Tiles?

1. What is the gloss of mattee ceramic tile?

Mattee tiles are tiles with relatively low gloss, which are usually suitable for kitchen and bathroom floors.

At present, there is no uniform standard for the gloss of mattee tiles. Different enterprises will divide the tiles into mattee tiles and polished tiles according to user needs. Compared with polished tiles, mattee tiles are non-bright surfaces, which can avoid light pollution and are more convenient to maintain. But it is easier to get dirty and not easy to take care of.
Highlight and mattee refers to a characteristic of the object surface. Objects gloss can be divided into highlights, semi-gloss, mercerize, soft light and mattee according to the difference in gloss. Most objects in nature are neither completely specular nor completely mattee. Usually, the gloss can be measured with a professional specular gloss meter.

2. Method for measuring the gloss of mattee ceramic tiles

Whether the surface of an object is high-gloss or matte can usually be easily distinguished by the naked eye. However, it is difficult to compare the difference in surface gloss of two objects that are both high-gloss or matte. In order to accurately assess the surface gloss of high-gloss and mattee objects, professional surface gloss meter is needed. Most surface gloss meters measure the surface reflectance of an object, which is called a specular gloss meter. The measurement results are different depending on the angle of incidence selected during the measurement. The larger the angle of incidence, the greater the specular reflectance and the higher the gloss. That is why high-gloss materials should be measured with a high-gloss specular gloss meter at a 20-degree angle; otherwise, the lower the specular reflectance, the lower the gloss. Then we should use a specular gloss meter with an 85-degree angle. It can be seen that the level of gloss depends not only on the surface characteristics of the object, but also on the measuring angle of the instrument.

The general angle on the market is a 60-degree specular gloss meter. Like the general-purpose 60-degree gloss meter LS192 from Linshang Technology, the measurement range reaches 1000GU. High-gloss and low-gloss materials can be tested because gloss is a relative value. When there is no uniform standard in the industry, the LS192 can be used for testing. If the industry has a uniform standard, it is best to use the same angle of testing. Therefore, when selecting the measurement angle, you should choose differently according to different situations.