G. Lee et al., AN ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT OF MEASUREMENT UNCERTAINTY IN PRECISION INSPECTION AND MACHINE CALIBRATION, International journal of machine tools & manufacture, 37(3), 1997, pp. 263-276
Dimensional inspection is commonly used to scrutinize the quality of m
anufactured products against the established standards and specificati
ons. Meanwhile, dimensional measurement of an artifact is also commonl
y used as one of the methods for machine-performance calibration. Howe
ver, the quality and reliability of many inspection and measurement pr
ocesses are often contaminated by various uncertainties. Two prominent
sources for measurement uncertainties are: (a) the imperfection of a
measuring device, and (b) the dimensional deviation and geometric char
acteristics of a measured feature. Usually, the effects of both types
of uncertainty are compounded by one another. To ensure the quality an
d reliability of any inspection process, measurement uncertainty needs
to be addressed for all data acquisition activities. A method is also
needed to identify and decouple the effect of compounded uncertaintie
s. If this can be done, then the data collected can be properly adjust
ed and a more meaningful analysis result can be drawn. In this paper,
the issues of uncertainty identification for machine calibration and d
imension measurement using artifacts with various geometric features a
re discussed. Analytical models are derived first to identify and then
decouple the compounded effect of both types of uncertainties. Finall
y, case studies are used to illustrate the procedures for both identif
ying and decoupling the compounded effect of the measurement uncertain
ties. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.