Overview
Projects
Technical Specifications
Documentation
The Alicona G4 InfiniteFocus is a metrological tool that uses ‘Focus-Variation’ to measures form and roughness of surfaces. ‘Focus-Variation’ combines the small depth of focus of an optical system with vertical scanning to provide topographical information from the variation of focus. As well as topographical information, the colour CCDs provide RGB allowing colour imaging that can be merged with the colour-height mapping.
The Alicona is excellent for rough surfaces and most engineering surfaces, but struggles with highly polished surfaces. It is good for opaque and translucent materials, but transparent are challenging.
The systems has been used on usually tribological and corrosion samples, such as wear loss measurements, assessment of corrosion features and damage at impact sites, but also for additive manufactured structures and microfluid moulds dimensions and uniformity, and bio-fouled surfaces.
Projects involving the Alicona include:
- New generation of protective coatings alternative to hard chrome
- Impact and erosion resistant materials
- Investigating rail axle bearing damage
- Scuffing in piston assembly and liner of fired combustion engines
- Structured Surfaces for Tribological Applications
- The Adhesion Rail Riddle - Ensuring Trains Can Brake
Papers produced include:
- Observing early stage rail axle bearing damage
- Volumetric assessment of material loss from retrieved cemented metal hip replacement stems
- The influence of start–stop transient velocity on the friction and wear behaviour of a hyper-eutectic Al–Si automotive alloy
- Fatigue crack initiation and growth behavior in a notch with periodic overloads in the low-cycle fatigue regime of FV566 ex-service steam turbine blade material
- Effects of laser shock peening on the mechanisms of fatigue short crack initiation and propagation of AA7075-T651
- Mechano-electrochemistry effects due to deformation of copper oxide films
- The corrosion behaviour of commercial purity titanium processed by high-pressure torsion
| Objective magnification | 2.5× | 5× | 10× | 20× | 50× | 100× | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working distance | mm | 8.8 | 23.5 | 17.5 | 19 | 11 | 4.5 |
| Lateral measurement range (X,Y) | mm | 5.63 | 2.82 | 1.62 | 0.81 | 0.32 | 0.16 |
| (X x Y) | mm² | 31.7 | 7.85 | 2.62 | 0.66 | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Vertical resolution | nm | 2300 | 410 | 100 | 50 | 20 | 10 |
| Height step accuracy (1 mm) | % | n.a. | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Max. measurable area | mm² | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 3965 | 990 |
| Optional | mm² | 40000 | 40000 | 40000 | 24780 | 3965 | 990 |
| Min. measurable roughness (Ra) | µm | 7 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 0.15 | 0.06 | 0.03 |
| Min. measurable roughness (Sa) | µm | 3.5 | 0.6 | 0.15 | 0.075 | 0.03 | 0.015 |
| Min. measurable radius | µm | 20 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Below there is a link to the user guide for the Alicona G4 InfiniteFocus