Surface metrology

Surface metrology
Surface metrology is the measurement of small-scale features on surfaces, and is a branch of metrology. Surface primary form, surface waviness and surface roughness are the parameters most commonly associated with the field. It is important to many disciplines and is mostly known for the machining of precision parts and assemblies which contain mating surfaces or which must operate with high internal pressures. Surface metrology is the study of surface geometry, also called surface texture or surface roughness. The approach is to measure and analyze the surface texture in order to be able to understand how the texture is influenced by its history, (e.g., manufacture, wear, fracture) and how it influences its behavior (e.g., adhesion, gloss, friction).

Equipment
A full list of standardized instruments can also be found in the part 6 document of the ISO series ISO 25178.

Contact (tactile measurement)

The following instruments are well established technologies. There are many manufacturers implementing these technologies into products: Profilometer - traditionally called a stylus and works like a phonograph Atomic force microscope

Non-Contact (optical microscopes)

Optical measurement instruments have some advantages over the tactile ones. The main advantages are: no touching of the surface (the sample can not be damaged) the measurement speed is much higher (up to a million 3d points can be measured in a second) they are designed primarily for 3D surface topography rather than single traces of data they can measure surfaces through transparent medium such as glass or plastic film they have lower vertical noise

Vertical scanning: Interferometry Confocal microscopy Focus variation Confocal chromatic aberration

Horizonal scanning: Scanning laser microscope (SLM) Structured light scanning

Choice of the right measurement instrument

Because of every instrument has advantages and disadvantages the operator must choose the right instrument depending on the measurement application. In the following some advantages and disadvantages to the main technologies are listed: Interferometry: This method has the highest vertical resolution of any optical technique and lateral resolution equivalent to most other optical techniques except for confocal which has better lateral resolution. Instruments can measure very smooth surfaces using phase shifting interferometry (PSI) with high vertical repeatability; such systems can be dedicated for measuring large parts (up to 300mm) or microscope-based. They can also use vertical scanning interferomtry (VSI) mode with a white-light source to measure steep or rough surfaces,

Surface metrology including machined metal, foam, paper and more. Actually the interaction of light with the sample for this instruments is not fully understood. This means that measurement errors can occure specially for roughness measurement. This is described in 2 articles from national laboratorys (see [1] and [2] ) Focus variation: This method delivers color information, can measure on steep flanks and can measure on very rough surfaces. The disadvantage is that this method can not measure on surfaces with a very smooth surface roughness like a silicon wafer. The main application is metal (machined parts and tools), plastic or paper samples. Confocal microscopy: this method has the advantage of high lateral resolution because of the use of a pin hole but has the disadvantage the it can not measure on steep flanks. Also, it quickly loses vertical resolution when looking at large areas since the veritical sensitivity depends on the microscope objective in use. Confocal chromatic aberration: This method has the advantage of measuring certain height ranges without a vertical scan but cannot measure very smooth surfaces. Profilometer: this method is the most common surface measurement technique. The advantages are that it is a cheap instrument and has higher lateral resolution than optical techniques. New systems can do 3D measurement in addition to 2D traces and can measure form and critical dimensions as well as roughness.

Resolution
The scale of the desired measurement will help decide which type of microscope will be used. For 3D measurements, the probe is commanded to scan over a 2D area on the surface. The spacing between data points may not be the same in both directions. In some cases, the physics of the measuring instrument may have a large effect on the data. This is especially true when measuring very smooth surfaces. For contact measurements, most obvious problem is that the stylus may scratch the measured surface. Another problem is that the stylus may be too blunt to reach the bottom of deep valleys and it may round the tips of sharp peaks. In this case the probe is a physical filter that limits the accuracy of the instrument.

Roughness parameters
The real surface geometry is so complicated that a finite number of parameters cannot provide a full description. If the number of parameters used is increased, a more accurate description can be obtained. This is one of the reasons for introducing new parameters for surface evaluation. Surface roughness parameters are normally categorised into three groups according to its functionality. These groups are defined as amplitude parameters, spacing parameters, and hybrid parameters.[3]

Profile roughness parameters

Parameters used to describe surfaces are largely statistical indicators obtained from many samples of the surface height. Some examples include:

Surface metrology

Table of useful surface metrics

Parameter Name Description Type Formula

Ra, Raa, Ryni Rq, RRMS

arithmetic average of absolute values root mean squared

Mean of the absolute values of the profile heights measured from a mean line averaged over the profile

Amplitude

Amplitude

Rv Rp Rt Rsk Rku RSm

maximum valley depth

Maximum depth of the profile below the mean line with the sampling Amplitude length Maximum height of the profile above the mean line within the sampling length Maximum peak to valley height of the profile in the assessment length Symmetry of the profile about the mean line Amplitude

maximum peak height

Maximum Height of the Profile Skewness

Amplitude

Amplitude

Kurtosis

Measure of the sharpness of the surface profile

Hybrid

Mean Peak Spacing

Mean Spacing between peaks at the mean line

Spatial

This is a small subset of available parameters described in standards like ASME B46.1[4] and ISO 4287[5] . Most of these parameters originated from the capabilities of profilometers and other mechanical probe systems. In addition, new measures of surface dimensions have been developed which are more directly related to the measurements made possible by high-definition optical gauging technologies. Most of these parameters can be estimated using the SurfCharJ plugin [6] for the ImageJ.

Areal surface parameters

The surface roughness can also be calculated over an area. This gives Sa instead of Ra values. The ISO 25178 series describes all these roughness values in detail. The advantage over the profile parameters are: more significant values more relation to the real function possible faster measurement with actualiunstruments possible (optical areal based instruments can measure an Sa in higher speed then Ra. Surfaces have fractal properties, multi-scale measurements can also be made such as Length-scale Fractal Analysis or Area-scale Fractal Analysis.[7]

Surface metrology

Filtering
To obtain the surface characteristic almost all measurements are subject to filtering.

References
[1] F. Gao, R.K. Leach, J. Petzing and J.M. Coupland: Surface Measurement errors using commercial scanning white light interferometers. In Measurement Science and Technology, 19 (1), 015303 , Jan. 2008 [2] Hyug-Gyo Rhee, Theodore Vorburger, Jonathan W. Lee and Joseph Fu: Discrepancies between roughness measurements obtained with phase-shifting and white-light interferometry. Applied Optics IP, vol. 44, Issue 28, pp.5919-5927, 2005 [3] Gadelmawla E.S.; Koura M.M.; Maksoud T.M.A.1; Elewa I.M.; Soliman H.H., Roughness parameters, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 123, Number 1, 10 April 2002 , pp. 133-145(13) [4] ASME B46.1 (http:/ / catalog. asme. org/ Codes/ PrintBook/ B461_2002_Surface_Texture. cfm) [5] ISO 4287 (http:/ / www. iso. org/ iso/ en/ CatalogueDetailPage. CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=10132) [6] http:/ / www. gcsca. net/ IJ/ SurfCharJ. html [7] http:/ / www. me. wpi. edu/ Research/ SurfMet/ Research/ fractal. html

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors

Surface metrology Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=406256169 Contributors: AbsolutDan, AirdishStraus, Ambios, B Pete, Casito, David.c.h, Editore99, Enovakaz, Fede.Campana, Femto, Fhelmli, Gargoyle888, John Hill, John of Reading, Lightfarmer, Lights, MetrologyMan, Nimur, Physchim62, Psa0, R. S. Shaw, Ron.swonger, The Alchemist1234, The wub, Traceyvincent3, Wizard191, Woohookitty, 24 anonymous edits

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