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Surface Finishing From Ra To RZ: Final Manufacturing Assignment
Surface Finishing From Ra To RZ: Final Manufacturing Assignment
Surface Finishing
From Ra to Rz
April 2003
Ryan Bourget
Ryan Bourget
Surface Finish
Surface finish, by definition, is the allowable deviation from a
perfectly flat surface that is made by some manufacturing process.
Whenever any process is used to manufacture a part, there will be some
roughness on the surface. This roughness can be caused by a cutting tool
making tiny grooves on the surface or by the individual grains of the
grinding wheel each cutting its own groove on the surface. It is affected by
the choice of tool, speed of the tool, environmental conditions, and definitely
by what material you are working with. Even when there is no machining
involved, as in casting/injection molding, the surface of the mold will have
surface deviation, which in turn will be transferred onto the part. Even if
you could create a mold which was perfectly flat, the cooling process and
thermal properties of the material would cause surface imperfections. So,
like everything else in the manufacturing world, we have had to make a
compromise between function and cost of manufacturing. If you dont need
a mirror finish all over the brake drum, then you just cast it and worry about
machining the surfaces that need to be (relatively) flat for the function of the
part. I have included at the end of the report a chart that details the surface
finishes that can be obtained by many different processing methods.
The science of metrology the
study of surface finish/texture/etc.
goes into such depth with the
statistical analysis and complex
calculus (Ill explain how this
enters later) that Im only going to
go over the basics of twodimensional surface profile
analysis. For most types of surface
finish measurements, the testing
equipment works as follows: a
stylus is dragged across a surface,
Ryan Bourget
Ryan Bourget
Ryan Bourget
Ryan Bourget
Roughness values Ra
m
in
Roughness Grade
Numbers
50
2000
N12
25
1000
N11
12.5
500
N10
6.3
250
N9
3.2
125
N8
1.6
63
N7
0.8
32
N6
0.4
16
N5
0.2
N4
0.1
N3
0.05
N2
0.025
N1
There is hundreds of different styles of 2-D surface testers, but they all
essentially do the same thing. Stylus tips are the same as on most precision
measuring equipment, being a very hard stone usually. The stylus on the
Mitutoyo Surftest 211 (the tester in the shop) is diamond tipped. This is to
prevent deflection of the tip when it encounters the tiny bumps on the surface.
The stylus tip can have a different radius depending on the application and how
you plan to analyze the data. The radius on the diamond tip on the Mitutoyo
tester is 5m. The downward force of the stylus when measuring is 4 mN.
While something of this nature may be good for most circumstances, if you are
testing the surface of a soft material like gold, you might be scratching the
surface with your surface tester. The customer will probably fail to see the
irony in that, so different methods of testing must be used. There are optical
and other non-contact methods of measuring surface quality, but are generally
very expensive (starting above $10,000). Surface testers generally are
calibrated before being used (and periodically thereafter) because the tester
amplifies the signal. Its reading is compared to a known value, and adjusted
until the tester displays the same reading as the reference specimen. The surface
tester in the lab gets calibrated by a specimen with an Ra value of 116in
(2.95m). The cutoff lengths you can choose are .01in (.25mm) .03 in (0.8mm)
and 0.1in (2.5mm). I found that if you use the shortest cutoff length, the
reading is inaccurate. The longest cutoff length returns an error more often than
not, and the middle length returns a reasonable result. (There is no other tester
to compare accuracy for)
This report has barely scratched the surface of metrology but gives a
quick insight into this interesting and indepth field.