A study on evaluation strategies in dimensional X-ray computed tomography by estimation of measurement uncertainties

Computed tomography has entered the industrial world in 1980’s as a technique for nondestructive testing and has nowadays become a revolutionary tool for dimensional metrology, suitable for actual/nominal comparison and verification of geometrical and dimensional tolerances. This paper evaluates measurement results using different measuring strategies applied in different inspection software packages for volume and surface data analysis.

The strategy influence is determined by calculating the measurement uncertainty. This investigation includes measurements of two industrial items, an aluminium pipe connector and a plastic toggle, a hearing aid component. These are measured using a commercial CT scanner. Traceability is transferred using tactile and optical coordinate measuring machines, which are used to produce reference measurements.

Results show that measurements of diameter for both parts resulted in smaller systematic errors compared to distance and height measurements. It was found that uncertainties of all measurands evaluated on surface data were generally greater compared to measurements performed on volume data.