The installation of a new piece of metrology equipment represents an ongoing partnership between Bruker Alicona and the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC).
With its new µCMM, the AMRC now has four focus variation optical metrology systems at its disposal, indicating a firm commitment to the technology.
Metrology manager Richard James commented: “We are very excited to have this state-of-the-art optical metrology system at the AMRC. The capabilities of the system greatly enhance our metrology capability: the ability to measure vertical walls inside holes is going to be a gamechanger in our ‘One Way Assembly’ grand challenge research programme.
“We have had a long relationship with the Alicona products which have helped the AMRC in many research projects into advanced manufacturing techniques which are now in production environments. We look forward to continuing this collaboration with Bruker Alicona in the future.”
According to Bruker Alicona, the µCMM is the first purely optical coordinate measuring machine and is used to measure extremely tight tolerances with high accuracy. Users combine the advantages of tactile CMM technology with optical surface measurement to establish the dimension, position, shape and roughness of components with just a single sensor.
The optical CMM offers high geometric accuracy of several optical 3D measurements in relation to each other, enabling the measurement of small surface details on large components and precisely determining the position of these individual results in relation to each other.
All components, including the moving axes, operate contact-free with air-bearing linear drive axes enabling wear-free operation and high precision, rapid measurement. This makes μCMM ideal for use in production environments.
The spectrum of measurable surfaces includes all common industrial materials and composites such as plastics, PCD, CFRP, ceramics, chrome and silicon. The µCMM is simple to use with push button operation, automation and ergonomic elements such as a specially designed controller.
Bruker Alicona
www.alicona.com
AUTHOR
Michael Tyrrell
Digital Coordinator
