Why surface finish is important for engineering instruments?

 The term surface finish generally refers to the overall description of the surface including the
texture, the flaws, the materials, and any coatings applied.
 The need of producing smother and harder functioning of machine parts, load carrying
capacity, tool life, fatigue life, bearing corrosion, and wear qualities of any component of any
component of machine have direct bearing with its surface texture.
 Therefore, these effects made the control of surface texture very important. The surface
finish is important to the function of many kinds of industrial products ranging from optics to
highways.

What are the factors affecting surface finish in machining?

 The machining variables (cutting speed, feed, depth of cut).
 Tool geometry (nose radius, rake angle, side cutting edge angle, cutting edge)
 Workpiece end tool material combination and their mechanical properties.
 Quality and type of machine tool used.
 Auxiliary cooling and lubricant used.
 Vibrations between the workpiece, machine tool and cutting tool.

Terminologies:
As we know that any material being machined by chip removal process can't be finished
perfectly due to some departures from ideal conditions as envisaged by the designer, due to
conditions being classified into four categories.

Fig. Surface form deviations

First Order:
This includes the irregularities arising out of inaccuracies in the machine tool itself e.g. lack of
straightness of guide ways on which tool post is moving. This includes the surface irregularities
arising due to deformation of work under the action of cutting forces and the weight of the
material itself.

Second Order:
Some irregularities are caused due to vibrations of any kind such as chatter marks and are
included in second order.

Third Order:
Even if the machine were perfect and completely free of vibrations, some irregularities are
caused by machining itself due to characteristics of the process. This also includes the feed
marks of the cutting tool.

Fourth Order:
This includes the irregularities arising from the rupture of the material during the separation of
the chip.

Further these irregularities of four orders can be grouped under two groups.

First group:
First group includes irregularities of considerable wave- length of a periodic character resulting
from mechanical disturbances in the generating set-up. These errors are termed as macro-
geometrical errors and include irregularities of first and second order and are mainly due to
misalignment of centers, lack of straightness of guide- ways and non- linear feed motion. These
errors are also referred to as Waviness or Secondary Texture.

Second group:
Second group includes irregularities of small wavelength caused by the direct action of the
cutting element on the material or by some other disturbance such as friction, wear, or corrosion.
These errors and fourth order and constitutes the micro geometrical errors. Errors in this group
are referred to as Roughness or Primary Texture.

Thus any finished surface could be considered to be combination of two forms of wavelength
(larger wavelength for waviness and smaller wavelength for roughness) superimposed upon each
other. One of the problems in measuring surface finish is to separate the waviness from the
roughness.

Roughness:
Roughness consists of surface irregularities which result from the various machining process.
These irregularities combine to form surface texture.
 Spacing of the irregularities is the mean distance between the more prominent irregularities of
the effective profile, within the sampling length. This information is useful for measuring the
wearing in of contact. Irregularity spacing and height parameters used in combination are
valuable for sheet-steel applications and for friction and lubrication studies.

Roughness height:
It is the height of the irregularities with respect to a reference line. It is measured in millimeters
or microns. It is also known as the height of unevenness.

Roughness width:
The roughness width is the distance parallel to the nominal surface between successive peaks or
ridges which constitute the predominate pattern of the roughness. It is measured in millimeters.

Fig. Surface characteristics

 Fig. Roughness, waviness and form

Waviness:
This refers to the irregularities which are outside the roughness width cut off values. Waviness is
the widely spaced component of the surface texture. This may be the result of workpiece or tool
deflection during machining, vibrations or tool runout.

Waviness Width:
Waviness height is the peak to valley distance of the surface profile, measured in millimeters.

Surface Texture:
It is the repetitive or random deviations from the nominal surface which form the pattern of the
surface. Surface texture includes roughness, waviness, lay and flaws.

Primary Texture (Roughness):

It is caused due to the irregularities in the surface roughness which results from the inherent
action of the production process. These are deemed to include transverse feed marks and the
irregularities within them.

Secondary Texture (Waviness):

It results from the factors such as machine or work deflections, vibrations, chatter, heat treatment
or warping strains. Waviness is the component of surface roughness upon which roughness is
superimposed.

Real Surface:
Real Surface is the surface limiting the body and separating it from the surrounding surface.
Geometrical Surface is the surface prescribed by the design or by the process of manufacture,
neglecting the errors of form and surface roughness.

Effective Surface:
Effective Surface is the close representation of real surface obtained by instrumental means.
Effective profile:
The contour that results from the intersection of the effective surface by a plane conventionally
defined with respect to the geometrical surface.

Roughness Width Cut Off:

Roughness width cut off is the greatest spacing of respective surface irregularities to be included
in the measurement of the average roughness height. It should always be greater than the
roughness width in order to obtain the total roughness height rating.

Lay:
Lay represents the direction of predominant surface pattern produced and it reflects the
machining operation used to produce it.

Flaws:
Flaws are irregularities which occur at one place or at relatively infrequent or widely varying
intervals in a surface (like scratches, cracks, random blemishes, etc)

Centre line of profile is the line parallel to the general direction of the profile for which the
areas embraced by the profile above and below the line are equal. When the waveform is
repetitive, the mean line and the centre line are equivalent.

It may be noted that true repetitiveness in any manufacturing process is impossible and as such
some difference in mean line and centre line is bound to exist. But, however, in view of its
insignificance in relation to other errors of measurement of surface geometry by index, the mean
line and the centre line may be considered to be equivalent for practical purposes.
Mean line of the profile is the line having the form of the geometrical profile and dividing
the effective profile so that within the sampling length the sum of the squares of distances
between effective points and the mean line is a minimum.

Traversing length:
Traversing length is the length of the profile necessary for the evaluation of the surface
roughness parameters. The traversing length may include one or more sampling lengths.

Sampling length:
Sampling length is the length of profile necessary for the evaluation of the irregularities to be
taken into account. This is also known as the cut-off length to the measuring instruments.

It is measured in a direction parallel to the general direction of the profile. It is very difficult to
specify any value for spacing i.e. the length over which the surface profile is to be considered
which could depend upon the manufacturing process employed. Similarly no theoretical value
could be assigned to the maximum spacing for considering the waviness, as at the higher value
the waviness tends to become 0.8 mm is commonly accepted as suitable for most waviness
measurements.

Fig. Sample length and assessment length

 Table 1. Various Surface roughness parameters and their formulae

Arithmetic average roughness (Ra):

The CLA or centre line average value of surface roughness (R a) (as per the BS-1134) is the
arithmetical average of the departure of the whole of the profile both above and below its
centerline throughout the prescribed meter cut-off in a plane substantially normal to the surface.

The ordinates are summed up without considering their algebraic signs approximately, where n is
the no. of divisions over the sampling length.

Fig. Average surface roughness Ra

Ten point averaged height Rz

It is the difference between the average height of five highest peaks and five lowest peaks within
the sampling length measured with respect to datum parallel to mean line.

Fig. Ten point averaged height of irregularities

Root Mean Square (Rq or RRMS)

Its numerical value is about 11% higher than that of Ra.

Average peak - to - valley height (Rz):

This is the average of single peak–to–valley heights from five adjoining sampling lengths.

Maximum height of irregularity (Rmax) is defined as the distance between two lines parallel to
the mean lien and touching the profile at highest points within the sampling length.

R1 measurement:
It is the maximum peak to valley height within the assessment length. This measurement is
valuable for analyzing finish to provide guidance for planning subsequent metal-cutting
operations. Average wavelength = Ra/ Mean slope.

Bearing area or Bearing area fraction:

This is the fraction of surface at a given height above or below the mean line.

Ten point heights of irregularities (r2) is defined as the average difference between the five
highest peaks and the five deepest valleys within the sampling length measured from a line,
parallel to the mean lien and not crossing the profile.

Depth of surface smoothness (Rp):

Depth of surface smoothness (Rp) value indicates amount of material to be removed from a work
piece to obtain 50% bearing area.