SURFACE TEXTURE

surface texture also known as surface finish, or surface topography, is the nature of a
surface as defined by the three characteristics of lay, surface roughness, and waviness. It
comprises the small, local deviations of a surface from the perfectly flat ideal (a true plane).

Surface texture is one of the important factors that control friction and transfer layer
formation during sliding. Surface textures can be isotropic or anisotropic. Isotropy is
uniformity in all orientation. Anisotropic is the property of being directionally dependent i.e.,
different properties in different directions. This may be defined as a difference while measured
in different directions. Opposite of isotropic.

Each manufacturing process i.e., many kinds of machining, produces a surface texture.
The process is usually optimized to ensure that the resulting texture is usable. When necessary,
an additional process is added to modify the initial texture. The additional process may be
grinding (abrasive cutting), polishing, lapping, abrasive blasting, honing, electrical discharge
machining (EDM), milling, lithography, industrial etching/chemical milling, laser texturing, or
other processes.

LAY:

Lay is the direction of the

predominant surface pattern,
ordinarily determined by the
production method used. The term is
also used to denote the winding
direction of fibres and strands of a
rope. Figures beside show examples
of various lay patterns.

SURFACE ROUGHNESS

Surface roughness often shortened

to roughness, is a component of
surface texture. It is quantified by
the deviations in the direction of the
normal vector of a real surface from
its ideal form
If these deviations are large, the surface is rough; if they are small, the surface is smooth. In
surface metrology, roughness is typically considered to be the high-frequency, short-
wavelength component of a measured surface. But actually, it is often necessary to know both
the amplitude and frequency to ensure that a surface is fit for a purpose. In tribology, rough
surfaces usually wear more quickly and have higher friction coefficients than smooth surfaces.
Roughness is often a good predictor of the performance of a mechanical component, since
irregularities on the surface may form nucleation sites for cracks or corrosion. On the other
hand, roughness may promote adhesion. Generally speaking, rather than scale specific
descriptors, cross-scale descriptors such as surface fractality provide more meaningful
predictions of mechanical interactions at surfaces including contact stiffness and static friction.

Even though a high roughness value is often undesirable, it is

difficult and expensive to control in manufacturing. For
example, it is difficult and expensive to control surface
roughness of fused deposition modelling (FDM) manufactured
parts. Decreasing the roughness of a surface usually increases
its manufacturing cost. This often results in a trade-off between
the manufacturing cost of a component and its performance in
application. The basic symbol of
surface roughness

Roughness can be measured by manual comparison against a "surface roughness

comparator" (a sample of known surface roughness), but more generally a surface profile
measurement is made with a profilometer. These can be of the contact variety (typically a
diamond stylus) or optical (e.g.: a white light interferometer or laser scanning confocal
microscope).

WAVINESS

Waviness is the measurement of the more widely spaced component of surface texture.
It is a broader view of roughness because it is more strictly defined as "the irregularities whose
spacing is greater than the roughness sampling length". It can occur from machine or work
deflections, chatter, residual stress, vibrations, or heat treatment. Waviness should also be
distinguished from flatness, both by its shorter spacing and its characteristic of being typically
periodic in nature.
PARAMETERS

There are several parameters for expressing waviness height, the most common being
Wa & Wt, for average waviness and total waviness, respectively. The waviness spacing,
Wsm, is another parameter that describes the mean spacing between periodic waviness peaks.
One of the most important is the waviness evaluation length, which is the length in which the
waviness parameters are determined. Within this length the waviness profile is determined.
This is a surface texture profile that has the shorter roughness characteristics filtered out, or
removed; it also does not include any profile changes due to changes in workpiece geometry
that are either unintentional (flatness) or intentional (form).

TYPES OF SURFACES

A surface is a boundary that separates an object from another object or substance.

Surface is divided into three subgroups.
 Nominal surface or Ideal Surface is the intended surface. The nominal / ideal surface
does not include intended surface roughness. A real surface is the actual boundary of an object
It deviates from the nominal surface as a result of the process that has created the surface the
deviation also depends on the properties, composition, and structure of the material.

A measured surface is a representation of the real surface obtained with some

measuring instrument. This distinction is made because no measurement will give the exact
real surface.

Any manufactured surface always departs to some extent from die absolute perfection.
The imperfections take the form of successive hills and valleys, which may vary both in height
and spacing, and results in a kind of “texture", which in appearance or feel is often a
characteristic of the machining process and its accompanying defects. The departures from a
truly smooth surface may arise from a variety of causes and may be of several kinds. There is
a certain “texture” or “roughness” in the form of minute irregularities, which are resulted
directly from the particular process. The surface roughness greatly influences the function of the
machine parts. It also affects the resistance to wear, load-carrying capacity, tool life, corrosion
resistance, fatigue resistance and ability to hold pressure and noise reduction in case of transmission
devices. A “perfect surface” is one with no irregularities at all and, therefore, a “perfectly smooth
surface” is not at all possible in practice.

SURFACE FINISH IMPERFECTIONS

Type of Imperfection Related Problem or Cause of error

Form Error Form errors resulting from large-scale problems in the
manufacturing process such as errors in machine tool ways, guides,
or spindles, insecure clamping, inaccurate alignment of a
workpiece, or uneven wear in machining equipment. Form error is
on the dividing line in size scale between geometric errors and
finish errors.
Surface Texture Surface Texture includes roughness, waviness, and lay, that is, the
deviations that are shorter in wavelength than form error
deviations.
 Roughness (Primary Roughness is sometimes known as “Micro-geometrical deviation”
Texture) or “Micro-geomatical irregularities”. These are defined within the
area, where deviations of form and waviness are eliminated.
Waviness It may be caused by vibrations, chatter, heat-treatment or warping
(Secondary Texture) strains. Waviness is the component of surface roughness upon
which roughness is superimposed.
Flaws These are unintentional and unwanted problems with a surface.
Such imperfections are scratches, holes, cracks, pits, checks,
porosity etc. These may be observed directly or with the aid of a
penetrating dye or other materials that make them visible for
examination and evaluation.

SURFACE PROFILES

Profile is the contour of any section through a surface. Mathematically, it is the line of
intersection of a surface with a sectioning plane, which is (ordinarily) perpendicular to the
surface. It is a two-dimensional slice of the three-dimensional surface. Profiles are always
measured across the surface in a direction perpendicular to the lay of the surface.

- The nominal profile is the straight or smoothly curved line of intersection of the nominal
surface with a plane, which is (ordinarily) perpendicular to the surface. The

nominal profile has a known mathematical shape for a known part (most often a straight

line or a circle).
-A real profile is a profile of the real surface. It is the (idealised) shape of the intersection of a
surface with a perpendicular sectioning plane.

-A measured profile is a representation of the real profile obtained with some measuring
instrument. This distinction between “real” and “measured” is made because no measurement
will give the exact real surface. A modified profile is a measured profile that has been modified
by mechanical, electrical, optical, or digital filtering. The filtering is ordinarily done to
minimise certain surface characteristics while emphasising others.

-A modified profile differs from a measured profile in the sense that the real profile is
intentionally modified as part of the measurement. A measured profile is an unintentional
modification of the real profile resulting from the limitations of the measuring instrument.
Some modified surface profiles are classified as, traced profile, form profile, primary profile,
form error profile, texture profile, waviness profile, roughness profile.

PROFILE PEAKS AND VALLEYS

(i) The profile height at a particular point is the distance from the profile to its mean line.

Profile height is considered positive above the mean line and negative below the mean line.

(ii) A profile peak is a region of the profile that lies above the mean line and intersects the

mean line at each end. The height of a peak is the height of the highest point within the profile
peak.

(iii) A profile valley (analogous to a profile peak) is a region of the profile that lies below the
mean line and intersects it at each end. The depth of a valley is the depth of the lowest point
within the profile valley.

(iv) Sometimes, it is convenient to speak of one profile peak together with one adjacent profile
valley as a profile irregularity.

(v) A local peak is a region of a profile between two successive local minima in the profile.
Local peaks are regions between two local minima

(vi) A local valley is a region of a profile between two successive “high points” (local maxima)
in the profile and it lies between two maxima (above or below the mean line).
(vii) Spacing refers to the distance between features on a profile in the X direction, parallel to
the nominal direction of the trace. The features that determine a spacing parameter usually
relate to peaks and valleys or to average wavelengths, etc.

A profiling method is a means of measuring a profile of a surface. The result of the method is
a two-dimensional graph of the shape of the surface in the sectioning plane created by the
profiling instrument. The most common type of profiling instrument draws a diamond stylus
across the surface and measures its vertical displacement as a function of position.

LAY:

Lay is defined as the direction of the predominant surface pattern produced by tool marks. It is
important for optical properties of a surface. Turning’ milling, drilling, grinding, and other
cutting tool machining processes usually produce a surface that has lay with peaks or striations
and valleys in the direction that the tool was drawn across the surface. Other processes such as
sand casting, peening, and grit blasting produce surfaces with no characteristic direction.

Parallel or Unidirectional:

Lay parallel to the boundary line of the nominal surface that is, lay parallel to the line
representing surface to which the symbol is applied, e.g., parallel shaping, end view of turning
and grinding of outer diameter.

Perpendicular:

Lay perpendicular to the boundary line of the nominal surface, that is, lay perpendicular to the
line representing surface to which the symbol is applied, e.g., end view of shaping, longitudinal
view of turning and I.D. grinding.

Cross (X): Lay angular in both directions to line representing the surface to which symbol is
applied, there are two types of angular lays (i) criss-cross straight (ii) crisscross arcuate. The
examples are side-wheel grinding, traversed end mill.

Multidirectional (M): Lay multidirectional e.g., lapping, super-finishing.

Circular (C): Lay approximately circular relative to the centre of the surface to which

the symbol is applied, e.g., facing on a lathe.

Particulate (P): Lay with no characteristic direction, e.g., sand casting, peening and
grit blasting. Sometimes these surfaces are said to have a non-directional, protuberant, pitted
or porous lay.

Profile Measuring Lengths:

Traversing Length is the length of the profile (measured in a direction parallel to the
general direction of the profile) necessary for the evaluation of the surface roughness
parameters. The traversing length may include one or more sampling lengths. The evaluation
length is the entire length of a profile over which data has been collected. Sampling length is
the length of profile necessary for the evaluation of the irregularities to be taken into account.
It is measured in a direction parallel to the general direction of the profile.

Reference Mean Lines:

A mean line is a reference line from which profile deviations are measured. It is the zero level

for a total or modified profile. A least square mean line is a line through a profile such that the
sum of the squares of the deviations of the profile from the mean line is minimised. In practice,
this is done with a digitised profile. The most common application of a least squares mean line
is to “level” the raw traced profile. A filter mean line is the mean line implicit in a profile
filter. For example, the waviness profile may be considered the mean line of the texture profile.
Another name for the filter mean line in analog instruments is the “electrical mean line”. The
centre line of a profile is the line drawn through a segment (usually a sample length) of the
profile such that the total areas between the line and the profile are the same above and below
the line. This concept is little used in modem instruments; it mainly served as a graphical
method for drawing a mean line on the output of a profile-recording instrument with no built-
in parameter processing.

Surface Profiling Filters

Filtering is a procedure to separate certain frequency components of a surface profile.

The filters widely used in practice are:

(i) Graphical filters, (ii) Electronic / Electrical filters, and (iii) Mechanical filters.

Depending upon the desired component, the filtering operations are classified as: Short-
pass(or High-pass) filtering in which the short wavelength (or high frequency) components are
allowed and therefore, the “roughness profile” is extracted. Long-pass (or Low-pass) filtering
in which the long wavelength (or low frequency) components are allowed and therefore, the
“waviness profile” are extracted. Band-pass filtering in which both high-pass and low-pass
filters are applied and a controlled profile data bandwidth is allowed and therefore, a profile of
specified bandwidth is extracted.

TWO-DIMENSIONAL PARAMETERS USED FOR EVALUATION OF SURFACE

ROUGHNESS:

Two kinds of irregularity of a profile are,

(i) varying vertically (i.e. height variations)

(ii) varying horizontally (i.e. spacing variations).

The “Surface roughness measurement parameters” are broadly classified into four sub-groups,
they are:

1. Height (amplitude) parameters,

2. Spacing parameters,
3. Hybrid parameters,
4. Statistical analysis.
IMPORTANCE OF SURFACE FINISH

The surface roughness is very important from the point of view of fundamental
problems such as friction and wear, surface contact, lubrication, fatigue strength and tightness
of joints. It affects the conduction of heat and electrical current, cleanliness, reflectivity of the
surface and sealing action. It definitely affects the positional accuracy of mating parts, load-
carrying capacity, resistance to corrosion and adhesion of paint and coatings. The accuracy and
surface finish requirements for machine parts in the modern industry are becoming more and
more stringent. If the machining imperfections exceed the design specifications, then the
functionality of the product is definitely affected. So, it is very essential to check whether the
design of the work piece complies with the functional requirements of the product. Hence it is
necessary to check the geometry and the surface characteristics of the work piece.

Consider a particular surface. It is seen that some points appear to be wavy with respect
to another point i.e., the height of one point, is different than height of its neighbouring point.
If the relationship between various points on the same surface is studied, it is seen that every
part of the surface of every engineering component surface will have sort of texture. It can be
rough texture or very smooth texture or it can have a very specific type of surface.

The measurement of surface texture is very essential to understand a components

surface and to control the manufacturing process to the degree required in today’s modern
world. So, surface texture parameters are grouped into many categories like roughness
parameters, waviness parameters and spacing parameters and also the combination of this
termed as hybrid parameters.
the general term surface it is the boundary of any engineering component which is expose to
the atmosphere or other kind of medium. And then a profile it is a contour of any specified
section through a surface.
All the elements are seen in the diagram bellow. So, the elements of profile that are seen

consists of waviness of the surface and roughness, flaws etc.

The distance between peak and valley and also the distance between 2 peaks or distance
between 2 valleys is termed as waviness spacing and if we remove the waviness part of the
profile. Then we will get only the micro irregularities which is termed as roughness.
And the distance between peak and valleys termed as roughness height and the pitch this pitch

that is distance between 2 peak peaks is termed as roughness spacing.

The distance between 2 peaks of roughness is known roughness spacing and let’s consider a

particular of the wavy profile and then go for studying or the measuring the roughness. So,

this particular length is known as roughness sampling length also it is known as cut-off length.

And the actually when mechanical engineers specifies the roughness, actually specifies to have
a desired profile like this which is almost flat and straight.
.
Centre-Line Average and Roughness Grade