CONTROL ROUGHNESS-WITHOUT DAMAGING VERY SMALL FEATURES

摘要

The surface of a gear should be smooth enough to mesh fluidly with surrounding gears, but not so smooth that the lubricant will slide right off. Now imagine those gears are designed for a 1-centimeter-long geartrain. That is the kind of problem MicroTek Finishing of Hamilton, OH, hopes to solve with its proprietary micromachining technology. It promises extraordinary control over surface finish with micro-roughness as low as 1 to 5 nanometers in some cases. Micromachining also improves the reliability of heat-resistant coatings applied to airfoils and cutting tools. Micromachining begins by measuring surface roughness with a profilometer or white light interferometer.