
Dashboard surface texture
July 7, 2023When you’re thinking about the most engineered surfaces in a car, you may think of cylinder bores, clutches, brakes, etc. But we’d like to put one more item on your

Cavitation erosion
June 22, 2023Cavitation is the formation of air bubbles in a fluid as it goes from high pressure to low pressure. The dissolved gas can grow into bubbles—and under certain conditions those

Why do some bearings look shiny with wear?
April 25, 2023We tend to think of “new” surfaces as shiny and smooth, and “worn” surfaces as rough, dull, or uneven. But for a bearing surface, the opposite is often true: the

Visualizing “filtering” — an animation
April 18, 2023Surface texture can be described as a spectrum of spatial wavelengths. “Filtering” is the process to isolate the wavelengths that matter for our application. But what does that really look

Paint finish and spatial wavelengths
March 14, 2023Two lots of steel pass inspection for surface roughness. Yet, when we paint a panel from each lot, one looks great, and the other…does not. How can it be, when

A little tribology every morning
September 13, 2022Years ago, I’d just completed one of my first major surface roughness measurement projects, and I was considering my next steps to form an actual business. I thought that I

michmet.com has a new look!
July 13, 2022We’ve updated the Michigan Metrology website to give our visitors a better experience. All of the helpful content that you’ve come to expect is still here—the Surface Texture Parameters Glossary,
Full Course now available online!
May 28, 2022As you may know, our Surface Roughness, Texture and Tribology course has been available as ten individual modules for online learning at udemy.com. We have had quite a few requests

Michigan Metrology in Finishing and Coating Magazine
April 28, 2022Most quality professionals working with surface texture/roughness are well familiar with “R” parameters, such as Ra (average roughness). These widely used parameters are derived from 2-dimensional measurements, typically generated by