A Study on Roughness Measurement of Polished Surfaces Using Reflected Laser Beam Image

레이저빔 반사 화상을 이용한 연마면 거칠기 측정법에 관한 연구

This paper presents the principle and experimental results of a non-contact surface roughness measurement by means of screen projected pattern of lase beam reflected from a polished surface. In the reflected laser beam pattern especially from a fine surface like ground or polished one, light intensity varies from the center fo the image to its boundary as the Gaussian distribution. The standard deviation of a light intensity distribution is assumed to be a good non-contact estimator for measuring the surface roughnes, because the light reflectivity is known to be well related with the surface roughness. This method doesn't need to discriminate between the specularly reflected light and the diffusely reflected one, whereas the scattered laser intensity method must do. Nor it needs to adjust the change of light intensity caused by environmental lights or specimen materials. Reflected laser beam pattern narrowly spreads out in the vertical direction to tiny scratches on the polished surface due to abrasives. The deeper the scratch the more the dispersion, which means the rougher surface. The standard deviation of the pattern is nearly in proportion to the surface roughness. Measurement errors by this method are shown to be below 10 percent compared with those obtained by a common contact method. The inclination of measuring unit from the normal axis causes the measurement errors up to 10 percent for an angle of 4 degree. Therefore the proposed method can be used as an on-the-machine quick roughness estimator within 10 percent measurement error.