SURFACE-ROUGHNESS MEASUREMENT BY ULTRASONIC SENSING FOR IN-PROCESS MONITORING

This paper presents a new surface roughness measurement. technique sui table for in-process monitoring in production machining processes. The technique is based on the utilization of focused ultrasonic beams wit h non-zero incidence angle and measurement of reflected intensities. F undamental principles and the measurement system developed are describ ed along with experimental results. The tests were conducted to test t he sensitivity and robustness of the proposed technique with various m illed surfaces and materials. The results show excellent correlations with those obtained by a profilometer. In addition, it is shown that t he periodicities of the surface profile corresponding to feed marks ca n be extracted from the measured ultrasonic signals, thus providing th e possibility of profiling. Finally in-process monitoring of surface r oughness during machining is demonstrated with the proposed technique.