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Volume Loss

Volume loss describes the amount of material lost on a surface due to abrasion, erosion or other types of wear. In industries such as aerospace and automotive, volume loss has traditionally been quantified by weighing the mass of a specimen before and after a wear test to provide the erosion mass loss. In contrast, Novacam’s low coherence profilometers measure volume loss directly, with micron precision, using the following approach:

1. Data is acquired by scanning the worn region of the sample and the intact region around it.
2. A reference plane is constructed for the intact surface.
3. Volume loss is calculated from the differences between the interpolated reference plane and the actual worn surface.

Scanned objects can be of various sizes, ranging from a few microns to several meters large. (Figures 1, 2, and 3).

An appropriate scanning mechanism (such as X-Y table, galvo-scanner, or rotational scanner) moves the profilometer fiber-based probe over the inspected surface. The surface measurements acquired at high speed (2-20 kHz per second or higher) form a 3D image and the profilometer application software calculates the volume loss.

• For more details and application examples related to low coherence profilometry measurements of volume loss, see application note Volume Loss Measurement [PDF, 0.7 MB].
• For our products, see Novacam’s profilometers.

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