New methods to directly measure adhesive stress and movement on glass

Practical scientific methods have been devised to measure cure-shrinkage phenomena for a small-volume disk geometry of adhesive agents, in liquid or paste form. These can be conducted simply, reproducibly and quickly, typically 5-120 min, once the apparati are set up. Originally utilised to measure shrinkage behavior in photocuring dental adhesives and biomaterials, the measurements may be applied as well to adhesives for fiber optic and optical applications. They are especially suitable for UV and visible-light curing adhesives. The 'bonded-disk' method is used for the measurement of shrinkage-strain kinetics and the Bioman method for shrinkage-stress of adhesives.