A simple fractal analysis method of the surface roughness

Abstract A simple procedure for the fractal analysis of roughness profiles of finished surfaces will be presented. The procedure is based on a power law for stochastically self-affine functions. The effort of computation is small compared with other methods of the fractal evaluation. Apart from the dimension, a second parameter will be calculated which describes the fractal equivalent to the RMS roughness. The procedure was successfully tested on real surfaces of polished, lapped, milled and turned samples. Selected experimental results will be demonstrated and interpreted.