Thank you for all your suggestions for new Notepad Series topics! We’re going to get to one of the most requested topics now: how to assess wear. If you dug a hole in your yard, you likely wouldn’t assess how deep it was by describing the roughness at the bottom of the hole. In this … Read more
Is a 3D (areal) texture measurement “better” than a 2D (profile) measurement? There are strong opinions on both sides. But the truth is that there may be some common ground. In fact, there are cases in which each type of measurement may be the right choice. In this video we discuss the properties of 2D … Read more
Is a smaller stylus tip radius better for measuring roughness? Is a larger tip more durable? The stylus tip radius influences what we see in surface texture measurement data. Since every tip is a little different, the resulting roughness values can be different even when you are trying to use the “same” radius. To make … Read more
Are the peaks that you are seeing in your surface texture measurement real? It’s a critical question, as peaks may cause all kinds of issues for an interface. The trouble is, in some cases the peaks that you see in your graphs may not be real at all…they may be artifacts of the filtering operation. … Read more
If we are controlling things like sealing in gaskets, or noise in bearings and gears, the longer-wavelength waviness may be more important than the surface roughness. In this video we look at how we extract waviness from surface texture data, using a “cutoff wavelength” to determine what will be called waviness and what will be … Read more
In our previous Notepad Series video we introduced the Material Ratio Curve. Today we look at the “Rk Parameters” which are derived from that curve. These parameters help us describe the peaks, valleys, and core region of a surface. All three regions may play important roles in how a surface will function: how it will wear, … Read more