Engineering Research Equipment Grant: Specification of Dimensional Inspection Techniques for Cylindrical Features

The objective of this grant is to purchase a Geometry Profiling System (Roundness Tester) which will be dedicated to support research in engineering. This piece of metrology equipment will be used in a research project seeking to specify dimensional inspection techniques and guidelines for the measurement of cylindrical features with Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM's). CMM's have the potential to provide a wealth of information on manufactured part geometry. However, for the metrologist, this technology brings a host of problems related to the methodology, quality and interpretation of measurements. The goal of this research project is to develop a set of guidelines designed to assist CMM operators in selecting appropriate measurement strategies for the verification of cylindrical feature tolerances. Within this project, the Roundness Tester will be used to generate polar chart of form errors characteristics of common cylindrical feature machining processes. The data will then be processed to extract dominant harmonic terms of these errors in order to build stochastic error models for form errors. The stochastic models will then be used to generate data for a simulation module designed to help make inferences on the performance of various inspection strategies.