All Features
Elizabeth Benham
This year will be the 45th anniversary of the Metric Conversion Act, which was signed on Dec. 23, 1975, by President Gerald R. Ford. Normally, we celebrate by sharing metric education resources, but this year I want to use the occasion to dispel some common misconceptions about the U.S.…
George Schuetz
Before a fixture gauge is designed, the engineer must understand what specifications must be inspected. In many respects, the gauge’s design reflects not only the design of the part but also the manufacturing processes that produced it.
Machinists must establish datums in order to machine a part…
NVision Inc.
A popular high-tech retailer recently used NVision Inc.'s long-range scanning and measurement services to reduce by one full month the time and cost of expanding its business into a newly vacated space. The system is designed to scan large structures where precise manual measurements are difficult…
Tim Mouw
To establish a successful quality control program, you need good instrumentation, robust software, and trained users. But even with everything in place, there are some common pitfalls to watch for when using a spectrophotometer to analyze color quality.
1. Bad standards and samples
Physical…
Ryan E. Day
Metrology may sound like an esoteric dark art, but it isn’t. If you’re involved in manufacturing of any stripe, you’re almost certainly a metrology practitioner. Coordinate metrology, on the other hand, is a more narrow subset of the field but still widely used in many industries for various…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Founded in 1984, the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) has championed portable coordinate measuring machine (CMM) technology ever since its inception. In some ways, the focus on portable CMMs overshadowed the traditional fixed CMM in much the same way any new technology garners the lion's share of…
Jérôme-Alexandre Lavoie
On Sept. 24, 2020, Creaform released the latest products in its R-Series scanners and software, which can increase productivity by detecting and addressing issues using automated dimensional quality control.
The lineup includes the new MetraSCAN-R BLACK robot-mounted optical CMM scanner, four…
Zach Murphree
The metal additive manufacturing (AM, aka 3D printing) industry is in vigorous pursuit of repeatable part quality. Its aim is to match the reliability and performance found in traditional manufacturing industries such as machining or casting. Repeatable quality opens the door to wide-scale…
Jason Stoughton
Remember that documentary you saw that finally explained metrology and why measurements are critical to practically every aspect of modern life? Yeah, neither do I. Probably because that documentary doesn’t exist... or does it?
The Last Artifact, a new one-hour film that PBS stations started…
Shobhendu Prabhakar
Although remote inspection has been a topic of discussion in the oil and gas industry in the past, it has recently been getting more attention during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many oil and gas operators, as well as engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractors and suppliers have come…
Ron Cowen
NIST physicist Zachary Levine doesn’t cook that often, but when he does, it can easily turn into a science experiment.
Two years ago, after he and his wife had endured a week of under-baked cookies and chicken that took forever to roast, Levine wasn’t content to simply recalibrate his oven…
Kristopher Lee
ASM International is a nonprofit professional society focused on providing scientific, engineering, and technical knowledge to its members and the materials science community. In its education and experimentation labs, it regularly works with innovative inspection solutions that have the potential…
NASA
On June 24, 2020, engineers completed the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s structural testing campaign for the Artemis lunar missions by testing the liquid oxygen structural test article to find its point of failure.
“The Space Launch System and Marshall test team have done a tremendous job of…
Matthew Martin
For more than 50 years, the benchmark for accuracy in measuring solid objects, whether machined, molded, die cast, welded, or forged, was the coordinate measuring machine (CMM). Typically using a solid, granite-base table along with a vertical, horizontal, gantry, or bridge-mounted arm and touch…
Ryan E. Day
Every so often an event, invention, or idea is so momentous it changes the face of entire industries. In some ways, the global response to Covid-19 has been such an event. In the case of metrology, however, it has only underscored that the foundational requirements of test and measurement remain…
Willow Ascenzo
During the late 19th century, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays and soon after discovered their properties for medical and industrial imaging when he created a radiograph of his wife’s hand. From this discovery, the powerful tool of X-ray radiography and tomography fell into the hands of medical…
Donald J. Wheeler
In May 2019, James Beagle and I published an article that contained tables for the analysis of mean moving ranges or ANOMmR (pronounced a-nom-m-r). By request of those using this technique, I have expanded these tables. This article contains these expanded tables and repeats the illustrative…
Matthew Staymates
As a fluid dynamicist and mechanical engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), I’ve devoted much of my career to helping others see things that are often difficult to detect. I’ve shown the complex flow of air that occurs when a dog sniffs. I’ve helped develop ways to…
NIST
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have used state-of-the-art atomic clocks, advanced light detectors, and a measurement tool called a frequency comb to boost the stability of microwave signals a hundredfold. This marks a giant step toward better electronics to…
John Smits, Gary Confalone, Tom Kinnare
Confusion between the two terms “RADAR” and “LIDAR” is understandable. Their names are nearly synonymous, and the terms are often used interchangeably. The acronyms are RADAR, which stands for RAdio Detection And Ranging; and LIDAR, which stands for LIght Detection And Ranging. The major difference…
Quality Digest
It’s easy to assume that something as simple as a mask wouldn’t pose much of a risk. Essentially, it’s just a covering that goes over your nose and mouth.
But masks are more than just stitched-together cloth. Medical-grade masks use multiple layers of nonwoven material, usually polypropylene,…
NIST
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have devised a novel, accurate, easy-to-operate, time- and labor-saving way to provide calibrated scale-bar standards for testing the performance of terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) systems.
TLS technology is widely employed to…
Gleb Tsipursky
So many companies are shifting their employees to working from home to address the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Yet they’re not considering the potential quality disasters that can occur as a result of this transition.
An example of this is what one of my coaching clients experienced more than a…
Belinda Jones
Back in 2016, the PrecisionPath Consortium (PPC), in cooperation with the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) and UNC Charlotte, conducted the very first industry survey in support of their lead project—the Technology Roadmap for Large-Scale Manufacturing. 3D measurement professionals answered…
David H. Parker
It is well known that the speed of light depends on the index of refraction of the medium in which the light is propagating. It is also well known that in a dispersive medium, the speed of an amplitude modulated wavefront depends on the group refractive index, i.e., slightly slower than the carrier…