TOOLinspect

The quality requirements made on modern functional surfaces are constantly increasing as even the smallest deviations can have a considerable influence on the product properties. Modern functional surfaces are increasingly no longer produced by directed processes (such as turning or grinding), but are coated, for example. This creates randomly distributed structural elements on the surface. It is no longer sufficient to determine roughness parameters such as Ra, Rz, Rpk, Rk and Rvk on the basis of individual profile sections in order to evaluate the function of non-directed surfaces. Rather, it is necessary to assess the surface properties over the entire surface and to describe them, for example, with the surface functional parameters Spk, Sk and Svk as counterparts to the above roughness parameters.

In the past, quality assurance in the production of functional surfaces was reserved for profiling devices. These established measuring instruments produce meaningful and reliable results on directed surfaces with which manufacturing processes can reliably be monitored. If randomly distributed surface defects occur on tribological surfaces, profilometers are no longer helpful. To generate reliable measurements with a profilometer, very long measurement series with many profiles must be recorded and analyzed. Although the profilometer acts almost like a two-dimensional measuring device, it requires a disproportionately long measuring time. Because the probe tip radius is small, the measuring point of the measuring point of the individual profile sections cannot be found again and repositioned. Accordingly, it is not possible to provide proof of measuring equipment capability for complex surfaces.