Many aspects of coating measurements are dominated by average bulk properties. Many polymer binder systems partially phase separate, and all practical coating systems consist of multiple components. Polymer phases tend to be reasonably similar in most physical and chemical properties and often have blending boundaries between the phases making the identification of the phases much more difficult than crystalline phases in metal alloys for example.

The impact of various phases can be simulated using finite element analysis(FEA). The impacts of variations in diffusion coefficients of phases are simulated in multiphysics FEA to understand not only the water distribution, but the electromagnetic response variation. These electromagnetic response simulations predict the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and dielectric spectrometer response. Several aspects of EIS spectra will be investigated as to the response from multiphase and multicomponent simulated coating systems. Aspects of variations in diffusion coefficients of the air and substrate coating interfaces will be investigated. The drive of the simulations is to help more fully understand the instrument response (EIS, dielectric spectrometer, glossmeter, and fracture toughness) to the intrinsic nonhomogeneity of coating systems. Embedded phases will be simulated to predict the long and short term capacitive changes. Simulation of systems allows the enumeration of the important process and material properties and distributions to allow more intelligent design optimization and instrument designs to measure the properties of value.