I would like to know about the different methods for measuring surface roughness.
As mentioned by C-G Li above, Surface Profilometer is one among many techniques to measure surface roughness. In the category of Surface Profilometers, there are both Stylus type (Talysurf, Dektak etc.) and Optical type (Zygo, VEECO etc.). In nanolevel, AFM is the best since it gives very high spatial resolution compared to Surface Profilometers. The Z resolution in both AFM and Optical Surface Profilometer is very high (in Angstrom level).
SEM can not measure surface roughness quantitatively in conventional modes, without stereomicroscopy.
I am afraid your question is too broad. What is your surface, which roughness parameters are you interested in? Just as example, you can measure R-RMS, R-zDIN, Rt, etc. Methods for measuring surface roughness are too diverse to discuss them in short post. They range from profilometers (mechanical and optical) to AFM to electron microscopes.
Please, reformulate you question.
Maybe you can just compare the friction to that of the same material with certain roughness.
Tally surf is an instrumernt which can be used to measure the surface roughness.
If you are simply wanting a quick and dirty approximation, there are surface comparators for machined and cast materials. One manufacturer of these types of comparators is GAR Electroforming in Danbury, CT. Other methods would be much more costly and involve laboratory testing of your surface. Mitoyo also makes surface roughness measurement devices for the lab case.
If you can provide more details about what you are trying to measure (i.e. what object or material) and the range you expect the roughness to be in, we could make a more appropriate recommendation for your application.
Good luck.
As mentioned by C-G Li above, Surface Profilometer is one among many techniques to measure surface roughness. In the category of Surface Profilometers, there are both Stylus type (Talysurf, Dektak etc.) and Optical type (Zygo, VEECO etc.). In nanolevel, AFM is the best since it gives very high spatial resolution compared to Surface Profilometers. The Z resolution in both AFM and Optical Surface Profilometer is very high (in Angstrom level).
SEM can not measure surface roughness quantitatively in conventional modes, without stereomicroscopy.
Commercial software does exist for SEM for surface roughness measurements.
The technique you choose to use will depend on what you anticipate the roughness likely be and the materials involved. In addition to the techniques mentioned above I would suggest X-ray Reflectometry as a possible candidate.
For lesser accuracy you can use surfcoder talysurf etc. You can even use the vision technique (image processing) for better accuracy using various softwares
Measurements of surface roughness are also possible to perform with nanoindenter. It depends on the type of indenter you use and software for it but it is possible in nanoscale
To Vladimir Dusevich: Is commercial software available for all makes of SEM?
Dear Suchitra,
Software is microscope-independent. It uses only pictures, but you have to have a microscope with good enough goniometer, so that you can measure tilt angle with precision of at least 0.1-0.2 degree.
Dear Vladimir, Thank you very much. Apparently, the technique seems to be 'Stereomicroscopy'. Am I right?
Direct methods assess surface finish by means of stylus type devices. Measurements are obtained using a stylus drawn along the surface to be measured: the stylus motion perpendicular to the surface is registered. This registered profile is then used to calculate the roughness parameters. This method requires interruption of the machine process, and the sharp diamond stylus may make micro-scratches on surfaces.
Two Dimensional Profilometry directly on the material surface and Three Dimensional Microscopy on replicated samples. See my paper on Researchgate and attached article on the subject
By Scanning Tuneling Microscope it is possible characterized 3 dimensional surface of materials.
Janusz, are you sure the main criteria when choosing whether employ interference profilometer or AFM is specimen size?
I measured roughness of thermally modified wood by a profilometer and the results were very good.
I think u have try to measure the roughness by coordinate measuring machine
When you decide to use the surface profilomter, remember to use more than one parameter
The combination of mechanical and optical profilometry
methods can provide a very good description of
concrete surface roughness at various scales. Depending
on the surface to be characterised, the mechanical
approach can yield more accurate results for low-scale
roughness, while the optical method appears to describe
more reliably upscale roughness. Using both methods,
it was shown that if the type of surface preparation
technique strongly influences meso- and macro-roughness
(waviness, meso-waviness, shape), it has virtually
no effect on micro-roughness. Nevertheless, the correlation
between roughness and bond strength needs to be
established in order to identify the critical roughness
parameters. For example, is the interlocking effect promoted
by micro-, meso- or macro-roughness? Research
projects are currently under way in an attempt to answer
this question.
the Combination of mechanical and optical profilometry techniques for concrete surface roughness characterisation will be one of options,
By angular resolved electron spectroscopy is also possible to get evaluation of surface profile of surface roughtness structures.
You can see this document that presents different methods for measering the surface roughness
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/selvaduray/page/papers/mate210/surface.pdf
The surface roughness is measured with a Talysurf.It is an instrument used to measure surface finish or texture in mechanical engineering
I found using a replicating material on the surface allowed for further microscopic inspection especially when sampling needs to be done where instruments are difficult to access. The results on the replicated samples and on the actual material were the same.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) or X-ray reflectivity technique will be suitable for measurement of roughness.
Dear Viktor
This review article may be useful for you. Herewith i attached for you.
I am agree with answerws from Suchitra Sen that added optical techniques to characterize surface topography like Zygo interferometer.
There is a kind of software called 3D roughness whicn is proviede by Pheonm. It is very good,
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is a very good technique to measure the roughness of a surface, and also you can use a Profilometer
Virtually every lab has an AFM these days... Its a very cheap, easy, and practical way to achieving what you want. If yours doesn't have one, believe me - your neighbors do :-). But as you have realized they are a number of techniques around.
Here are some other things to consider:
1. You might also want to look and play around with analysis software whilst you are doing your planning. I have used Gwyddion before – Its a stable, free and well supported modular program for 2D data analysis - it also handles all sorts of formats...
2. As such, try to avoid methods/equipment that spit out virtually unreadable (or strictly proprietary) formats,
3. You might also consider finding yourself a guy (preferably close by) who has published/reported/presented on such kind of results - conferences are a good starting point - at least they know what they are talking about!
4. Take every advise with a degree of suspicion - everyone can talk the talk, but not everyone can walk the walk ;-).
Good luck!
I fully agree with Ronald especially the 4 points to consider.
One other point I took from my research is that one needs to agree on why you are measuring the surface.
a) To compare 2 and 3 dimensional testing methods
b) To assess the texture and its suitability to obtain the correct bonding of coatings
c) To assess the profile of materials that will wear when lubricated
d) To assess the profile of materials that need to cleaned in the food and beverage industry; my research topic
e) To assess the profile of dentures. The material used is similar to Repliset that I have used very successfully
f) How do you get a sample that can be measured by a specific instrument? This is of importance in a problem solving situation when one cannot cut a sample from the surface being tested to take it to the lab for any special test on AFM or other equipment. Life cycle testing of surfaces is also problematic. This is where we found Repliset solved our problem as it is used extensively in industry for surface testing. Please see my published material in Researchgate.
Selection of testing methods should be "fit for purpose".
In my experience, during research at university and in the field, "walking the talk" has given light to many factors and brought suppliers of materials and end users close to knowing what measurements are relevant.
AFM has the higher resolution, 1 angstrom in Z, but optical profilometry (LASER for example) is quicker and could have around 1 nm resolution in Z. I currently use this one http://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CD8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.veeco.com%2Fpdfs%2Fbrochures%2FB506-Rev_A7-Wyko_NT_Series_Optical_Profilers-Brochure_(HiRes).pdf&ei=OCHFUMTKFobIhAfZw4CIAw&usg=AFQjCNGIwAbK0YYdj1O5uVZvhnzb3LMDdA&cad=rja
Interesting new article:
Investigation of techniques for the measurement of articular cartilage surface roughness (2013), by: Siddharth Ghosh, James Bowen, Kyle Jiang, Daniel M. Espino, Duncan E.T. Shepherd in: Micron Vol 44, No. 01(Jan) pp. 179-184 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09684328/44/1
Dear Rafael, Benoit Mandelbrot associated fractals with "roughness." Further elaboration to be published next year, but not anything that cannot be and is not presently practiced serendipitously. Adding a fractal property to Mendeleev's and subsequent periodic tables of the elements might be a good start, i.e., application for optimally determining surface "roughness," independent of the material, theoretically-speaking at this stage, of course.
Dear Rafael,
The fractal analysis in digital images associated with statistical analysis (or image feature) IS a method to measure the roughness of a surface. In my opinion this method could be standardized. We can develop this subject.
Dear Luminita
I need to note that your name means 'a little light' and it seems that in this case you did shed a little light on this issue. Perhaps you can shed a little more light...:-)
Thanks.
To Cj (not sure how you pronounce your name)
Adding the fractal property to the periodic table is something that is really new for me. On one hand you say that this is independent of the material, and on the other that it is dependent on the identity in the periodic table. I think this topic is quite interesting, but even if we accept this as an analytical technique it would qualify as a method of data manipulation, but the roughness data are still collected by the profilometer, AFM, etc...
I studied surface topography of the machined work-piece on a non-contact, three-dimensional, interferometry profiler ZYGO 3D—NV5000-5010. This is the best solution for measurement of surface profile.
Yes, Rafael, the fractal property is both independent of AND intrinsic to any material, obtainable from the unique spectras (luminati) of each and every element, atomic, or subatomic/materials (how and why, which would be new, the fractal property is both independent and intrinsic in physics/reality and upon which MATERIALS/periodic table elements ARE DEPENDENT, I can explain concretely/tangibly and fairly non-theoretically, perhaps collaboratively as primary author, in 2014 publication or preferably sooner).
Roughness data can then be collected by the most optimally precise, modified apparati, optimally aligned by this fractal property with the material.
[My first and middle initials are CJ and full last name or surname is Nevshehir (pronounced Nev'- sheer, short for Nevshehirlian, Nevshehir meaning New City, yet an ancient town in now Turkey).]
Luminita, thank you for shedding light on this topic.
AFM is one of the best tool for measuring the surface roughness.With high spatial resolution and two mode operation...makes it popular.
Thank you Drs. CJ Nev, Rafael Manory and Luminita Moraru for such an useful discussion on Fractal Geometry. The subject is relatively new to many of us who worked on other Surface techniques like Electron Microscopy, Surface Profilometry and AFM. The discussion is both entertaining and enlightening to me.
There are many tests designed for this purpose that you can find in Material Strength books, here I can give you some key words to direct your search, Vickers hardness test, Rockwell Hardness Test Method. These two are the most famous ones
I think there is quite a lot of confusion in the topic of roughness measurement. Some people, especially those newbies such as dentists or other medical doctors, simply believe whatever the AFM tells them, but in AFM you have to be very careful with the intrinsic low-passing limiation due to the low pixel number of the images. Also, some other guys I see them calculateing fractal dimension from whatever surface images. But again,you can always caluclate D, but it can not always make sense, as the surface can be not fractal at all, let me remind the rule of thumb kind of, that the features should replicate as self-affine throughout 3 orders of magnitude (say at least 2...)
bye!
There are number of ways to measure the surface roughness of the sample:
1. Contact Profilometer: This is a very common technique for surface polish samples. It work like phonograph with stylus attached to it
2. Optical Microscopy: There is no touching on the surface, measurement speed is very high and esp use to get 3D surface topography
3. Confocal Microscopy: THis is specially used for semiconductor material inspection
4. White light interferometry: THis technique usually use waves usually electromagnetic, are superimposed in order to extract information about the waves. Its a very versatile technique and can be used for all the samples. THe only disadvantage is that the samples has to be reflective.
5. AFM: This ia very good technique for surface roughness but the disadvantage is that the Z height is only 10 um. You cannot measure roughness grater than 10 um.
6. SEM: Not many people know but SEM can use to measure surface roughness too. Google SEM steroimaging.: collecting a stereo-pair in an SEM, you simply collect one image with the sample perpendicular to the detector (i.e. lying flat) and then a second image with the sample tilted, say 7⁰, towards or away from the detector. The images can then be viewed using a stereo-viewer or used to construct an anaglyph for which red/blue glasses are required to see the stereo effect. There are lot of softwares which can do roughness analysis with this technique.
Stylus Profiler or AFM (atomic force microscope) can be used, if you want to measure a nano-scale roughness AFM is the best.
There are a whole number of different methods that you throw at this from stylus, interferometry, infinite focus, AFM...the list continues. There is no one size fits all strategy and so it really depends on what the surface is that you are trying to characterize and indeed what information you ultimately require. Some methods are better for smooth surfaces, certain surfaces will require a non-contact method, and rough, dull or specular surfaces can offer different challenges. Methods like Electron Microscopy are useful qualitatively but are not really quantitative.
Coupled to this is the question of what exactly you mean by 'roughness'. Do you mean average deviation from normal on a profile? Or max to min deviation over a 3d surface? How big is the surface you want to sample over, what is the standard feature size that is present? What manufacturing operation has produced the surface? Does material lay influence the result?
If you can define your surface or a range of surface requirements and define what you mean by roughness then the search for a particular method can be more focused. Ref ISO 25178-2 if you want to understand the latest areal texture parameters and for an idea of which may be useful. Alternatively NPL good practice guide 108 may be of use to you.
Hope this helps
It depends on your roughness. It is rough and random, profliometery is good enough. It give you only 1D data. If the roughness is textured, you need interferometry or AFM.
There are several ways to estimate the surface roughness but the most used is the root mean square variation of the surface height profile from the mean height. Roughness is a value with length unities which depends of the considered concept and of the topography of a line or of an area where this value is calculated. So, relatively to the initial question, roughness can be calculated provided there is a height profile or a sequence of height profiles of a given area. Consequently, the profile measurement technique depends of the region to be considered.
Dear Dr. Klemm, the replica technique is purely qualitative. You can't get any quantitative value of surface roughness. But it's perfectly fine for imaging the surface and get a feel about its topography.
Dr. Klemm, yes, I agree. But I think that the methods are tedious to get average roughness of an area, as it measures the elevation feature by feature.
So many...
AFM
Confocal microscopy
Stylus
Interferometry
Profilometer
Holography
....
ISO 4287, Geometrical product specifications (GPS) - Surface texture: profile method-terms, definitions and surface texture parameters, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, (1997).
ISO 25178-6, Geometrical product specifications (GPS) - Surface texture: areal, classification of methods for measuring surface, texture International Organization for Standardization Committee, (2010).
AFM x Profilometer
The best choice will depend on the area that is necessary to represent the entire surface...
Surface Profilometer may be the most common technique to measure surface roughness.
Stylus approaches include Talysurf, whereas non contact optical approaches I advocate for Sensofar or FRT.
Dear everybody,
Last trends in surface texture and roughness calculations tends to use systems that allows the calculation of 3D surfaces as interferometry and confocal microscopy since many times 2D roughness calculations are not enough representative. On the other hand, the use of AFM can be "delicate" since as you are measuring a little part of the surface (e.g..5 or 10um) and therefore, you cannot follow ISO 25178 (you can not use a cut off value)
I attach some papers that can be useful....
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sca.21113/abstract;jsessionid=00750D95F696723DD9FF85835EB3771C.f04t01
http://www.e-bookspdf.org/view/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5kaWdpdGFsc3VyZi5mci9uZXdzbGV0dGVycy9uZXdzbGV0dGVyLTIwMTEtMDIucGRm/TmV3IEZvdW5kYXRpb25zIEZvciBNb2Rlcm4gU3VyZmFjZSBUZXh0dXJlIEFuYWx5c2lz
Dynamic Contatc angle? Evaluate the rougnhess trhow hysteresis? Is qualitative but if you compare samples...
Surface Profilometers are the main devices that can be used to measure surface roughness. There are two types of surface profilometers, stylus type (Talysurf, Dektak etc.) and optical type (Zygo, VEECO etc.). The stylus type is normally used to measure 2D or large step surface profiles (roughness), and the optical type can be used to measure 3D and small step surface profiles. AFM can also be used to measure surface profile, when high resolutions are required (up to tens of nanometers in x and y and up to sub-nanometer in z). However, AFM is only practical for measuring the surface profile of a local very small area.
Yes I know what you are talking about, but I want to ask if someone has experience in the correlation between roughness and contact angle measurments with liquids.. Thank you
Please anyone would suggest for measuring the surface roughness of circular hole of ceramic material
My research on the subject can be found in the attached documents.
Trust this helps.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221973895
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233855670
An excellent publication is also recommended.
Mummery L, Surface Texture Analysis The
Handbook, Hommelwerke GmbH, West
Germany, 1990.
Thesis Cleanability of Certain Stainless Steel Finishes in the Brew...
Conference Paper REVIEW OF METHODS TO MEASURE THE SURFACE TEXTURE OF STAINLESS STEEL
Fractal geometry can be used as well for investigating surface roughness. As first pointe-out by Mandelbrot (Mandelbrot, 1977, 1982 ), it can be used to describe highly complex forms that are characteristic of natural phenomena such as coastlines and landscapes.
A MATLAB implementation for computing the fractal dimension using the well-known differential box-counting algorithm can be downloaded form MATLAB Central at: http://ch.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/44951-fractal-dimension
I have a question please...Considering a working machine or equipment, and you're trying to determine the surface roughness of the workpiece or machine without switching off the machine or taking out the workpiece. How is that possible please? I need a technical contribution please. Thanks!
generally speaking, best would be by optical means (confocal or interferometric): no need for contact. Of course, accessibility (free way through space) for the optical beam would still be required, and possibly under different angles. One should see the setup of the machine, the specific geometry.
Thank you Dr. Marco Salerno. I will work on your advice based on the necessary technical point you hinted.
of course, optical profilometers, being based on refractive index contrast, are more prone to artifacts than contact profilometers, on inhomogeneous materials (eg composites). But if your machined piece is, eg, all-metal, and - even with different metals - all hi-reflectance, there should be no problem: just need some low-pass spatial filtering to remove the spikes at the edges. Good luck!
That is noted Dr. Marco Salerno. Thanks once again. However, have started studying the confocal microscopy techniques for analyzing surface roughness. I will appreciate if you can recommend some good books for me so as to quickly understands the concept and procedures. Kind regards!
Dear Ashish Thakur , I am sorry:
Despite it seems that - at least the first part (= first paragraph) of your answer [096] - if not most of your remarks are plagiarized (word by word / sentence, but cleverly compiled /rearranged, I haven't checked for plagiarism from subtitle: " Advance surface roughness characterizations measurement " on)
from Wikipedia and other websources you didn't mention ,
e.g. cobbled together from sources like:
- http://www.harrisonep.com/electropolishing-ra.html,
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_metrology,
- https://guide.digitalsurf.com/en/guide-profile-parameters.html ,
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_roughness ,
I would like to inform and stress that neither the cited reference link:
- https://www.osapublishing.org/DirectPDFAccess/EB72A43D-E57E-A9E0-3263A5DB881046E2_375182/boe-8-11-4974.pdf?da=1&id=375182&seq=0&mobile=no
is functionable.
At least when I am trying to link to that source (article)
==> https://www.researchgate.net/deref/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.osapublishing.org%2FDirectPDFAccess%2FEB72A43D-E57E-A9E0-3263A5DB881046E2_375182%2Fboe-8-11-4974.pdf%3Fda%3D1%26id%3D375182%26seq%3D0%26mobile%3Dno is created by my brwoser, which tries to download and download...to no avail: "WAITING FOR WWW..OSAPUBLISHING.ORG........and lasting.
For convenience of the reader I would like to also 'help you out',
The latter mentioned LINK [ https://www.osapublishing.org/DirectPDFAccess/EB72A43D-E57E-A9E0-3263A5DB881046E2_375182/boe-8-11-4974.pdf?da=1&id=375182&seq=0&mobile=no] should have linked to:
"Comparison of four methods of surface roughness assessment of corneal stromal bed after lamellar cutting" (OA, free access)
Jumelle, Clotilde; Hamri, Alina; Egaud, Gregory; Mauclair, Cyril; Reynaud, Stephanie; Dumas, Virginie; Pereira, Sandrine; Garcin, Thibaud; Gain, Philippe; Thuret, Gilles
- 2017
- Biomedical Optics Express 8(11) 4974-4986 View: HTML | PDF=
- https://www.osapublishing.org/boe/abstract.cfm?uri=boe-8-11-4974&origin=search
which without the ● in front of the URL turns automatically to the RG-database:
Article Comparison of four methods of surface roughness assessment o...
and - kindly - contains also a Public full text version of that article.
Another pamphlet to read would be (disclaimer: No affiliation to or financial interest from/in the mentioned Company):
MITUTOYO
QUICK GUIDE TO SURFACE ROUGHNESS MEASUREMENT
Reference guide for laboratory and workshop
Bulletin No. 2229
https://www.mitutoyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/1984_Surf_Roughness_PG.pdf
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