Appendix B: Wringing Films

In recent years it has been found possible to polish plane surfaces of hardened steel
to a degree of accuracy which had previously been approached only in the finest
optical work, and to produce steel blocks in the form of end gauges which can be
made to adhere or "wring" together in combinations. Considerable interest has been
aroused by the fact that these blocks will often cling together with such tenacity that
a far greater force must be employed to separate them than would be required if the
adhesion were solely due to atmospheric pressure. It is proposed in this paper to
examine the various causes which produce this adhesion: firstly, showing that by far
the greater portion of the effect is due to the presence of a liquid film between the
faces of the steel; and , secondly, endeavoring to account for the force which can be
resisted by such a film.

Thus began the article "The Adherence of Flat Surfaces" by H.M. Budgett in 1912 [B1], the first
scientific attack on the problem of gauge block wringing films. Unfortunately for those wishing tidy
solutions, the field has not progressed much since 1912. The work since then has, of course, added
much to our qualitative understanding of various phenomena associated with wringing, but there is
still no clear quantitative or predictive model of wringing film thickness or its stability in time. In
this appendix we will only describe some properties of wringing films, and make recommendations
about strategies to minimize problems due to film variations.

Physics of Wringing Films

What causes wrung gauge blocks to stick together? The earliest conjectures were that sliding blocks
together squeezed the air out, creating a vacuum. This view was shown to be wrong as early as 1912
by Budgett [B1] but still manages to creep into even modern textbooks [B2]. It is probable that
wringing is due to a number of forces, the relative strengths of which depend on the exact nature of
the block surface and the liquid adhering to the surface. The known facts about wringing are
summarized below.

1. The force of adhesion between blocks can be up to 300 N (75 lb). The force of the
atmosphere, 101 KPa (14 psi), is much weaker than an average wring, and studies have shown
that there is no significant vacuum between the blocks.

2. There is some metal-metal contact between the blocks, although too small for a significant
metallic bond to form. Wrung gauge blocks show an electrical resistance of about 0.003Ω [B3]
that corresponds to an area of contact of 10-5 cm2.
3. The average wringing film thickness depends on the fluid and surface finishes, as well as the
amount of time blocks are left wrung together. Generally the thickness is about 10 nm (0.4 µin),
but some wrings will be over 25 nm (1 µin) and some less than 0. (Yes, less than zero.)
[B3,B4.B5,B6]

4. The fluid between blocks seems to provide much of the cohesive force. No matter how a
block is cleaned, there will be some small amount of adsorbed water vapor. The normal

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 wringing procedure, of course, adds minute amounts of grease which allows a more consistent
wringing force. The force exerted by the fluid is of two types. Fluid, trapped in the very small
space between blocks, has internal bonds that resist being pulled apart. The fluid also has a
surface tension that tends to pull blocks together. Both of these forces are large enough to
provide the observed adhesion of gauge blocks.

5. The thickness of the wringing film is not stable, but evolves over time. First changes are due
to thermal relaxation, since some heat is transferred from the technician's hands during wringing.
Later, after the blocks have come to thermal equilibrium, the wring will still change slowly.
Over a period of days a wring can grow, shrink or even complicated combinations of growth and
shrinkage [B5,B6].

6. As a new block is wrung repeatedly the film thickness tends to shrink. This is due to
mechanical wear of the high points of the gauge block surface [B5,B6].

7. As blocks become worn and scratched the wringing process becomes more erratic, until they
do not wring well. At this point the blocks should be retired.

There may never be a definitive physical description for gauge block wringing. Besides the papers
mentioned above, which span 60 years, there was a large project at the National Bureau of Standards
during the 1960's. This program studied wringing films by a number of means, including
ellipsometry [B8]. The results were very much in line with the 7 points given above, i.e., on a
practical level we can describe the length properties of wringing films but lack a deeper
understanding of the physics involved in the process.

Fortunately, standards writers have understood this problem and included the length of one wringing
film in the defined block length. This relieves us of determining the film thickness separately since
it is automatically included whenever the block is measured interferometrically. There is some
uncertainty left for blocks that are measured by mechanical comparison, since the length of the
master block wringing film is assumed to be the same as the unknown block. This uncertainty is
probably less than 5 nm ( .2 µin) for blocks in good condition.

REFERENCES

[B1] "H.M. Budgett, "The Adherence of Flat Surfaces," Proceedings of the Royal Society, Vol.
86A, pp. 25-36 (1912).

[B2] D.M. Anthony, Engineering Metrology, Peragamon Press, New York, N.Y. (1986).

[B3] C.F. Bruce and B.S. Thornton, "Adhesion and Contact Error in Length Metrology," Journal
of Applied Physics, Vol. 17, No.8 pp. 853-858 (1956).

[B4] C.G. Peters and H.S. Boyd, "Interference methods for standardizing and testing precision
gauge blocks," Scientific Papers of the Bureau of Standards, Vol. 17, p.691 (1922).

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