On the Comparison of Contact and Non-Contact Evaluations of a Machined Surface

Manufactured components and their functional properties are heavily influenced by the material quality and the surface integrity of the machined surfaces [M'Saoubi 2008, Davim 2010].Surface of a machined part can be inspected with many techniques with a wide range of shape and quality parameters in 2D or 3D.The trend of more effective and low-consumption products forces the producers to reduce weight and dimensions of the industrial parts so the requirements on the machined surface quality evaluation is more important from many aspects like wear, leakage of oils, etc.The booming trend in optical non-contact techniques seems to be a serious challenge to the traditional tactile methods, esp. in the 3D surface assessments, but the problem of correlation and reliability should be studied urgently due to many reasons.However, the comfort and new parameters open new view on the quality and competiveness of producers.