Investigation of the effect of metal finishing grains on human perception

Abstract

Metals are the most common encountered material on various types of mechanical equipment. However, the oxidation of the surface of metals is unavoidable during various processes including heat treatment, machining, transportation, and storage. An uneven oxide layer will eventually build up on the surface. Meanwhile, the oxide layer easily gets contaminated by various types of oils and will absorb other impurities. Therefore, good surface treatment technologies are necessary for protecting metal surfaces. Nowadays, surface treatment is a process not only prevents dirt but also generates surface effects that can bring people different perceptions. In this study, a questionnaire survey is carried out to investigate people's perception and their recognition of various approaches of surface treatment. Due to the fact that this study is to investigate the presentation of metal grains while there are various types of surface treatment, the processes that are selected as the investigation targets include the clear anodization, high-gloss polishing, brushed straight grain of metals, dry sandblasting, and polishing. There are a total of 25 combinations of these processes. A total of 30 subjects are invited to the questionnaire survey in this study. They are asked to fill in the questionnaire of user preferences according to the degree of preference by observing the samples and to classify the samples according to the features that they perceived. The final step of this study is to analyze the results that are obtained from the subjects' evaluation of the degree of satisfaction of various types of metal surface treatment. The results serve as a good reference for follow-up studies of metal part designs.