The importance and usefulness of fractal dimension in describing surface roughness over the conventional roughness parameters are presented in this chapter. The fundamental of fractal dimension and the methodology for evaluation of fractal dimension are also discussed. Literature survey is carried out for four different types of machining processes and shows that there is scarcity of literatures which deal with fractal description of surface roughness. Fundamentals of design of experiments and response surface methodology are also discussed.
IntroductionSurfaces are irregular though they may look like very smooth. When the surfaces are magnified, the irregularities become prominent. This is true for the machining surfaces as well. In a material removal process such as machining, unwanted material is removed and altered surface topography is obtained. The surface generated consists of inherent irregularities left by the cutting tool, which are commonly defined as surface roughness. Such a surface is composed of a large number of length scales of superimposed roughness that are generally characterized by the standard deviation of surface peaks. Three statistical characteristics are generally used to describe the structure of machined surface topography: texture, waviness and roughness. The texture determines the anisotropic property of the surface. The waviness reflects the reference profile (or surface). The surface roughness is formed by the micro deformation during the machining process.Surface roughness plays an important role. It has large impact on the mechanical properties like fatigue behavior, corrosion resistance, creep life, etc.It also affects other functional attributes of machine components like friction, wear, light reflection, heat transmission, lubrication, electrical conductivity, etc. Surface roughness may depend on various factors like machining parameters, work-piece materials, cutting tool properties, cutting phenomenon, etc. In a review P. Sahoo et al.,