Measurement of Surface Finish

Introduction
• SURFACE: A surface is a boundary that separates an
object from another object or substance.

Real Surface: It is the actual boundary of an object. It is

produced as a result of the process that created the surface.

Measured Surface: A measured surface is a

representation of the real surface obtained with some
measuring instrument. This distinction is made, because no
measurement will give the exact real surface.
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• The properties such as appearance, corrosion resistance, wear
resistance, fatigue resistance, lubrication, initial tolerance,
ability to hold pressure, load carrying capacity, noise reduction
in case of gears are influenced by the surface finish.

• Factor affecting surface finishing:

 Material of the work piece.
 Type of machining process.
 Vibration.
 Cutting tool material, form, sharpness and type.
 Rigidity of the system consisting of machine tool, fixture of cutting tool
and work.
 Cutting conditions i.e. speed, feed, and depth of cut.
 Type of coolant used.
 Surface Texture
• Surface deviations: departures from nominal surface
in form of waviness, roughness, flaws, lay, and profile

• Surface Texture: “The characteristic quality of an actual

surface due to small departure from its general geometrical from
which, occurring at regular or irregular intervals, tend to form a
pattern or texture on the surface”. Texture includes roughness,
waviness and a lay, that is, all of the deviations that are shorter in
wavelength than form error deviations.

 Roughness: The surface irregularities of small

wavelength are known as roughness or primary texture
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• Lay : Lay refers to the predominant direction of the surface texture.
Ordinarily, lay is determined by the particular production method and
geometry used.

• Waviness : The surface irregularities of considerable

wavelength of a periodic character are known as waviness or
secondary texture

• Waviness height: Peak-to-valley distance in inches or millimeters

• Waviness width: distance between successive waviness peaks or

valleys in inches or millimeters
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• Roughness height: Roughness height is rated as
the arithmetical average deviation expressed in
micro inches measured normal to an imaginary
center line.

• Roughness width: distance between successive

roughness peaks parallel to nominal surface in
inches or millimeters

• Profile: contour of specified section through a

surface
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• Roughness width cutoff: greatest spacing of
repetitive surface irregularities included in
measurement of roughness height
 Must be greater than roughness width

• Flaws: irregularities such as scratches, holes, cracks,

ridges, or hollows that do not follow regular pattern
Meaning of complete surface finish symbol
is as below
a = Roughness value Ra in micrometer or grade number
b = Production method, treatment or coating
c = Sampling length
d = Direction of lay
e = Machining allowance
f = Other roughness value than Ra
Symbols that Indicate Direction of Lay

||
Parallel to boundary line of surface indicated by
symbol

_|_
Perpendicular to boundary line of surface indicated by
symbol

X
Angular in both directions on surface indicated by
symbol

M Multidirectional

C
Approximately circular to center of the surface
indicated by symbol

R
Approximately radial in relation to the center of
surface indicated by symbol
 Methods of measuring surface finish

• Surface inspection by comparison methods

 Touch inspection
 Visual inspection
 Scratch inspection
 Microscopic inspection
 Surface photographs
 Micro Interferometer
 Wallace surface dynamometer
 Reflected light intensity
 Comparison by standard specimens

• Direct instrument measurement

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• Touch Inspection
Simply used to assess which surface is more rough
Can not give degree of surface roughness
Minute flaws cannot be detected

• Visual Inspection
 Simplest method of judging the surface finish on surface of
any size and shape.
 Misleading particularly when surface of having high degree
of finish are inspected
 Improved by comparing the work with graded standards
 Only give subjective evolution and no quantitative evolution
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• Scratch inspection
 Softer material liked lead, babbit or plastic is rubbed over
the surface to be inspected.
 It carrying impression of the scratches on the surface which
can be easily inspected.

• Microscopic inspection
 Best method but suffer due to limitation that only a small
portion of the surface can be inspected at a time.
 In this method a master finished surface is placed under the
microscope and compared with the surface under inspection
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• Surface photographs
 Magnified photographs of the surface are taken with different types of
illumination.
 If vertical illumination is used than defects like irregularities and
scratches appear as dark spots and flat portion of the surface appear as
bright area.

• Micro Interferometer
 Optical flat is to be placed on the surface to be inspected.
 Then illuminated by a monochromatic source of light and interference
bands are studied through a microscope.
 Scratches in the surface appear as interference line extending from the
dark bands into the bright bands.
 Depth of scratches is measured in terms of fraction of interference band.
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• Reflected light intensity
 Beam of light of known quantity is projected upon
the surface.
 This light is reflected in several direction as beams
of lesser intensity and the change in light intensity in
different direction is measured by a photo cell.
 The measured intensity change are already calibrated
by means of reading taken from the surface of
known roughness by some other suitable method.
Direct Instrument Measurement Method

Profilometer
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• Stylus probe type instrument most commonly used in U.S.A for direct
measurement of surface quality.

• It measure the maximum, root mean square or arithmetical mean height

of irregularities in microns.

• Principle similar to gramophone pick up.

• Consist of two principle units: a tracer and an amplifier.

• Tracer is a finely pointed stylus.

• It is mounted in the pickup unit which consist of an induction coil located

in the field of a permanent magnet.
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• When the tracer is moved across the surface to be tested, it is
displaced vertically up and down due to surface irregularities.

• This causes the induction coil to move in the field of the permanent
magnet and induces a voltage.

• The induced voltage is amplified and recorded.

• From the induced voltage, this records the average height of the
surface roughness.

• This instrument is best suited for measuring surface finish of deep

bores
Tomlinson Surface Tester
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• Stylus probe type instrument
Construction
• Consist of diamond probe held by spring pressure against the surface
of a lapped steel cylinder and is attached to the body of the instrument
by a leaf spring.

• The lapped cylinder is supported on one side by the stylus and on the
other side by the two fixed rollers

• A light spring steel arm is attached to the lapped cylinder. It carries at

its tip a diamond scriber which rests against a smoked glass.

• The motion of the stylus in all direction except the vertical one are
prevented by the forces exerted by the two spring
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• When surface finish is to be measured, the body is traversed across the surface by a
screw rotated by a synchronous motor

• Any vertical movement of the stylus caused by the surface irregularities, causes the
horizontal lapped steel cylinder to roll.

• This causes the movement of the arm attached to the lapped cylinder

• A magnified vertical movement of the diamond scriber on smoked glass is obtained

by the movement of the arm

• This vertical movement equipped with the horizontal movement produce a trace on
the smoked glass magnified in vertical direction and there being no magnification in
horizontal direction

• The smoked glass trace is then further projected at X50 or X100 magnification for
examination
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 Advantage
• This instrument is simple and cheaper
• It gives reliable result

 Disadvantage
• It is slow in operation
• It is not suitable for continues use on the shop floor
• It is delicate and requires great care.
Talysurf Surface Roughness Tester
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• Stylus and skid type of instrument working on carrier modulating
principle. The vibration in the surface profile is sensed by the probe,
which is attached to the armature
• The gap between the armature and E-shaped arm varies according to
the surface profile and due to this amplitude of the AC current flowing
in the coil is modulated.

 Construction:

• As shown in fig., the stylus is mounted on the armature, which is

pivoted at the central limb of an E-shaped soft iron head.
• The outer limbs of the head are provided with two induction coils and a
small air gap is left between the armature and outer limbs of the head.
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• Working
• A downward movement of the stylus results in decreasing the
air gap of the primary coil and in an equal increase of the air
gap at secondary coil. Thus the amplitude of the original A.C.
current flowing in the coil is modulated.

• The output of the bridge thus consists of modulation only as

shown in fig.

• This further demodulated so that the current now is directly

proportional to the vertical displacement of the stylus only
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• The demodulated output is caused to operate a pen recorder to
produce a permanent record and the meter to give a numerical
assessment directly.

• The response to this instrument is more rapid and accurate as

compared to the Tomlinson surface tester.
Profilograph
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• Tracer type Profilograph

• Used for producing profile records

• The work to be tested is place on the table of the instrument

• The work and the table are traversed with the help of a lead screw

• A diamond stylus is pivoted together with a mirror which passes over

the machined surface

• A beam of light from lamp passing through the precision slit and lens
falls on the mirror
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• The reflected beam is directed to a revolving drum, upon which a
sensitized film is arranged

• This drum is rotated through two bevel gear from the same lead
screw that moves the table of the instrument

• A Profilograph will be obtained from the sensitized film, that may

be subsequently analyzed to determine the value of the surface
roughness
 Light Cross – section method
(Optical surface measuring instrument)
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• The principle of this method is that when a film of light strikes the
surface to be tested at an angle 45o a band of reflected light will
appear on the surface.

• The edge of this band will reproduce the profile of the surface
irregularities or so to say it will show an optical cross – section.

• This profile is magnified and observed by an optical device, arranged

at an angle 45o to the surface and normal to the light source.

• The surface is illuminated by a projection tube and is shown in fig of

the microscope.
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• A beam of light from a light source passes through the condenser
and precision slit and is directed at an angle of 45o to the surface
being tested.

• The observing microscope having the objective and eyepiece is also

inclined at an angle of 45o with the tested surface.

• Eyepiece contains a reading scale called an eyepiece micrometer,

which is used to measure the height o the surface irregularities such
as waviness and flaws.

• Scratches on the surface appears as interference line extending from

dark bands to bright bands.
 Numerical Evaluation Of Surface Texture

• Three method for evaluating primary texture (Roughness)

Peak to valley height method

The average roughness
From factor and bearing curve
 Peak to valley height
• Simplest method for
evaluating surface
roughness.

• Measure the maximum

depth of the surface
irregularities over a given
sample length, and
largest value of the depth
is accepted as surface
roughness.
 The Average Roughness
• Center Line Average:
• Defined as the average height from a mean line of all ordinates of the surface
regardless of the sign.
• Center line average value is given by,

• Also

• Where h1, h2…..hn are the height of the ordinate

• L is sampling length
• A1, A2…..An are the enclosed area
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Center Line Average

 Root mean square value
• It is the geometrical average of the ordinates of the profile about the
mean line.

• The roughness is measured as the average deviation from the

nominal surface.

• Mean line or center line is located such that the sum of the areas
above the line is approximately equal to sum of the area below the
line.

• R.M.S. value is defined as the square root of the arithmetic mean of

the values of the squares of the ordinates of the surface measured
from a mean line.
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• Let assume the sample length is
divided into n equal part and y1,
y2, y3….yn are the heights of the
ordinates,
Then

Or
 From factor and bearing curve
• Form Factor
• Load carrying area is shown by reference to from
factor
• The form factor is work out by measuring the area of
the material above the arbitrarily chosen base line in
the section and the area of the enveloping rectangle as
shown in fig.
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 Bearing area curve
• Fig indicates the method of
determining the area curve.

• It is also known as Abbot’s

bearing curve.

• This is determined by adding the

lengths a, b, c etc. at depths x, y,
z, etc. below the reference line
and indicating the percentage
bearing area which becomes
available as crest area worn
away.
 Effects of poor surface finish
• Following properties are affected by surface
finish
1. Fatigue strength
2. Wear resistance
3. Corrosion resistance
4. Strength of interference fits