Interrupted Measurement Repositioning Using Elastic Averaging

Abstract

In many cases, it is impractical or prohibitively expensive to develop new instrumentation to study tribological phenomena in situ, but with the application of elastic averaging, to accurately locate two surfaces with respect to one another, this can be realized with existing peripheral diagnostic equipment. A sample fixture was designed using the principles of elastic averaging that allows for the separation and repeatable repositioning of a tribological test specimen. Using an optical interferometer and digital image correlation, the fixture was determined to have average repositioning errors of <2 µm, in both the x and y directions. The application of these simple design principles could provide an accurate, repeatable, and low-cost solution for interrupted tribological studies.