“I saw an orchestra last night. It was 100 decibels.”
If you want to describe an orchestra performance, you’ll probably want to describe more than the volume! A symphony orchestra sounds amazingly rich because of the range of instruments, frequencies, and tones. The volume may be important, but you can experience that same volume from a rock concert…or a leaf blower. To convey the power of an orchestra, you need more specific ways to describe the sound.
The same is true of surface texture. If you’re only measuring a parameter like average roughness (Ra), you’re only getting a tiny part of the story! Does the surface have peaks vs valleys, wide or narrow spacings between features, directionality, waviness…? Average roughness alone can’t tell you.
Which is to say: Ra can’t tell whether your surface is playing Beethoven…or Chopsticks.
The good news is, there are hundreds of parameters that can inform you about specific aspects of surface texture. Most important, they can tell you about the actual surface functions that matter for your application (wear resistance, sealing, appearance, oil retention, etc.).
Want to learn more? Check out our next webinar on October 1, covering surface texture parameters! Learn more and register at michmet.com/webinars.
Thanks to Mark Malburg at Digital Metrology Solutions, Inc. for sharing this analogy at one of our Surface Roughness classes. Got an analogy that helps you make sense of surface texture? Email us and let us know!
