Optics & Laser Technology 31 (1999) 543548

www.elsevier.com/locate/optlastec

In-process roughness measurement on moving surfaces

P.L. Wong*, K.Y. Li
Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management Department, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong Received 26 May 1999; received in revised form 25 October 1999; accepted 15 November 1999

Abstract A new optical technique, which utilises the combined eects of interference and light scattering, was developed for surface roughness measurements. This paper presents the technique applicable to extracting the roughness of moving surfaces under high rotational speeds up to 3.7 m/s. The applicability of the technique to in-process roughness measurement was demonstrated with a cylindrical grinding process. 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: In-process measurement; Surface roughness; Topography

1. Introduction The advance in manufacturing automation has created the need to develop in-process measurement techniques, online quality control, and online machining compensation. Amongst these, the real time measurement of roughness on surfaces under dynamic conditions is important in many industrial processes. The monitoring of nished work piece roughness in a machining process can increase the machining rate up to the required surface nish such that the productivity can be enhanced. In-process roughness measurements can be taken as a process control parameter and/or a feedback for the optimisation of a machining process. The conventional method for measuring surface roughness is to pass a stylus probe across the surface and measure its movement such that the surface prole can be traced. The technique has been developed to a very sophisticated level. However, the nite radius of the tip of the probe limits the accuracy of the measurements. For peaks and crevices with dimensions smaller than the tip of the probe, the traced proles are smaller than the actual sizes. In other words, some infor* Corresponding author. Tel.: +852-2788-8420; fax: +852-27888423. E-mail address: meplwong@cityu.edu.hk (P.L. Wong).

mation of the surface is ltered. Furthermore, the technique is not particularly suitable to soft surfaces and it is susceptible to environmental disturbance due to its contact nature. Moreover, the roughness measurement is along a line on the surface and a large number of such lines must be traced if topographical information of the entire surface is required. It is a slow process. Hence, it is not suitable for the use of inprocess measurements. Compared to the stylus method, an optical method is often preferred because it is non-contacting and the process is non-destructive to any surface. The principles of the optical methods mainly rely on the focusing [1], interference [2], light-scattering [3], speckle [4] and reected beam positional variation [5] concepts. Some techniques which can obtain roughness measurements on moving surfaces have been demonstrated. However, they inevitably require sophisticated optical, electronic and control components and arrangement. The present authors [6] recently developed a new optical technique, termed as dark:bright ratio method, which utilises the size of dark or bright area on an image of reectance to interpret the roughness of a given surface. The reliability of the new technique in obtaining roughness data of surfaces was proven up to the linear speed of 0.107 m/s. The required set-up for the technique is very simple. Hence, it has great potential for applying to in-process measurement.

0030-3992/99/$ - see front matter 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 3 0 - 3 9 9 2 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 0 8 - 5

544

P.L. Wong, K.Y. Li / Optics & Laser Technology 31 (1999) 543548

Fig. 1. Scattering and interference.

This paper reports on the roughness measurement taken in a cylindrical grinding process with the new dark:bright method. The reliability of the technique being applied on surfaces under higher speeds (approaching to the magnitude of typical speeds in manufacturing processes) was also tested.

Fig. 3. Image of reectance from surface of 0.2 mm Ra.

2. Experiment and results 2.1. The new technique dark:bright ratio By projecting a coherent light onto a rough surface, the reected image formed is due to the combined

eects of interference and light scattering (Fig. 1). The intensity of the reectance along the axial direction is reduced due to the scattering eect. Only a portion of reectance is projected onto the observing screen such that the overall intensity of image pattern shown on the screen is diminished. The intensity of a reected image is dependent on the surface roughness and the relation has long been used for surface roughness

Fig. 2. Variation of normalised intensity with surface roughness.

P.L. Wong, K.Y. Li / Optics & Laser Technology 31 (1999) 543548

545

Fig. 4. Variation of dark:bright ratio with roughness for using various dark:bright threshold values.

measurements [7,8]. Fig. 2 depicts the variation of the normalised average intensity of reected images of six ground reference steel at surfaces of dierent Ra roughness in the range of 0.051.6 mm under four dierent intensity illuminations. The normalised average intensity is the ratio of the average intensity of an image to that with smallest roughness of 0.05 mm. It is reasonable to see that the rougher the surface is, the darker the overall intensity of the reectance (note: smaller value of the intensity means darker). For the small roughness range, the gradient of the curve is steep while for roughness greater than 0.4, the gradient is much shallower. Hence, if the average intensity of an image is used to interpret the surface roughness, the measuring range is very narrow, from 0.05 to 0.4 mm. Fig. 3 shows a typical image of reectance from a surface. Recently, it was reported by Wang et al. [6] that the measuring range can be enhanced if the size of dark or bright area is used instead of the overall intensity. Two grey levels are chosen for the classication of dark and bright points. Points having a grey level smaller than the dark threshold value are classied as dark, while those greater than the bright threshold value are bright. The ratios of the number of dark and bright points to the total number of sampling points are termed as dark ratio D and bright ratio B respectively. The choice of the dark and bright

threshold values, and the initial intensity of the light source would aect the measuring range of roughness. D increases and B decreases with the increase in roughness of the specimen surface. The reected images whose overall intensities are shown in Fig. 2 were analysed with the new technique. Fig. 4 shows the variation of B and D ratios with dierent roughness. Dierent dark and bright threshold values were tried and the results show that with D 70 and B r 160 as the dark and bright threshold values respectively, sensitive relations between D, B, and roughness

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of set-up.

546

P.L. Wong, K.Y. Li / Optics & Laser Technology 31 (1999) 543548

Fig. 6. Variation of dark:bright ratio with dierent speeds for dierent surfaces.

can be obtained. For measuring at ground surfaces having Ra < 0.3, a bright ratio provides a much better sensitivity than the dark ratio. For Ra > 0.3, a dark ratio is preferred. With appropriate choices of the D, B threshold values, and the initial intensity, the technique can be applied to a large roughness measuring range. In order to validate the technique for dynamic applications, four cylindrical steel specimens of 34 mm diameter with dierent surface roughness were tested with a simple set-up shown schematically in Fig. 5. The light source was a 10 mW HeNe laser with a wavelength of 632.8 nm and its intensity could be manually adjusted. A speckle pattern was formed by projecting the laser beam on to the specimen surface. The emerging beam was focused using a 4 microscope. The real image formed was projected onto a CCD image sensor and displayed on a monitor simultaneously. The speckle pattern was digitized by an image card of 512 512 resolution and 256 grey levels. Only the central 300 300 pixels, representing an actual dimension of 2 2 mm2, were chosen for analysis in order to prevent any edge eects. A similar setup and the same specimens were used before to prove the reliability of the technique for dynamic measurements. The test speed was up to 60 rpm. All of the surface roughness measurements were found within the statistical uncertainty bar of measurements obtained using a stylus instrument [6]. In the present work, the test speed was increased up to 250 rpm (equivalent to linear speed of 0.445 m/s). Reected images were grabbed at various rotational speeds. The variation of

the dark ratio measured from all the images taken at dierent speeds were plotted in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the measured dark ratios of a surface at dierent speeds are consistent and with little scattering. For the nest surface of 0.05 mm, the dark ratio is very small (less than 1%). A small scattering of the measurement may lead to a signicant error in roughness. Hence, the bright ratio is preferred and its corresponding bright ratio measurements are also plotted in a dotted line shown in Fig. 6. The bright ratios measured at dierent speeds are also consistent. Hence, the technique is proven to be reliable in measuring roughness on a fast moving surface. 2.2. In-process measurements A CNC cylindrical grinding machine, SHIGIYA G20ND, was used in the experiment. The specimen wheel is made of mild steel. Its diameter and thickness are respectively of 143 mm and 31 mm. The initial surface roughness was prepared by turning. The surface was illuminated using a HeNe laser with a wavelength of 632.8 nm. The set-up is similar to that shown in Fig. 5. The use of a long focal length microscope can keep the optical set-up reasonably far from the work piece. During the grinding process, coolant was applied. In order to prevent any spray on the lens, a plastic screen shielded the microscope during the grinding operation and it was removed when images were grabbed. The spindle speed of the grinding wheel was xed at 2270 rpm while the rotational speed of the specimen and the depth of cut were varied as required

P.L. Wong, K.Y. Li / Optics & Laser Technology 31 (1999) 543548

547

Fig. 7. Variation of dark ratio during machining.

at dierent stages of machining. While the machining process was performed, the roughness was measured after the completion of each cut and the grinding wheel was at the end position of its stroke. The grinding wheel, the specimen, and the supply of coolant were not stopped when the image was taken. The supply of coolant was steady and the coolant formed a fairly constant uid lm on the measuring spot. Since the measuring technique is a relative method, the uid lm thus does not aect it. Fig. 7 shows the variation of dark ratio for a machining process. All the data shown in Fig. 7 are average values of six independent measurements. Their standard deviations are also illustrated in the same graph. The initial rotational speed of the specimen wheel was 500 rpm. The speed was kept till the completion of the rough cutting stage (cut 22). Then the speed was reduced by 50 rpm after each cut until the nal speed of 50 rpm. As can be seen in Fig. 7, the dark ratio maintains at high values during the rough cutting stage, which is illustrated with the corresponding large standard deviations. After the 16th cut, the standard deviation drops to a low value. In the subsequent ve cuts, which were still under the same speed of 500 rpm, the dark ratio measurements maintain a fairly constant value with small values of standard deviation. These support that the rough cutting stage is over. Following the reduction in cutting speed, the dark ratio drops as the surface is getting smoother. The initial and nal roughness of the specimen was 2.79 and 0.78 mm respectively, measured using a Rank Taylor Hobson Surtronic 3+ stylus instrument.

3. Conclusion The results presented in this paper show the applicability of the new method as a means of controlling the surface roughness in a grinding process. The dark ratio of the reectance drops (and the bright ratio increases) as the surface is smoothened. The new measuring technique makes use of the dark and the bright ratios such that it is applicable to both ne and rough surfaces. For controlling small surface roughness, the use of a bright ratio is preferred. The principle of the technique and the required set-up are very simple. It can be used as a component in an automated machining process. The measurement is instantaneous and data can be fed back to the CNC machine for the adjustment of the subsequent process. Acknowledgements The authors wish to express their appreciation to the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong for nancial support of the project. We also thank K. Cheung and S. L. Chang for their assistance in taking some of the measurements. References
[1] Mitsui K. In-process sensors for surface roughness and their application. Precision Engng 1986;8(4):212. [2] Wyant JC, Kwon O, Hayslett CR. Rough surface interferometry at 10.6 mm. Appl Opt 1980;19(11):1862. [3] Brodmann R, Thurn G. Roughness measurement of ground, turned and shoot-peened surfaces by the light-scattering

548

P.L. Wong, K.Y. Li / Optics & Laser Technology 31 (1999) 543548 [6] Wang W, Wong PL, Luo JB, Zhang Z. A new optical technique for roughness measurement on moving surface. Tribo Int 1998;31(5):281. [7] Bechmann P, Spizzichino A. The scattering of electromagnetic waves from rough surface. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1963. [8] Persson U. In-process measurement of surface roughness using light scattering. Wear 1998;215:54.

method. In: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Metrology and Properties of Engineering Surf., 1993. p. 380. [4] Sirohi RS. Speckle metrology. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1990. [5] Yoo SM, Dornfeld DA, Lemaster RL. Analysis and modeling of laser measurement system performance for wood surface. Trans ASME J Engng Ind 1990;112:69.