Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Case Against Optical Gauge Block Metrology

Published

Author(s)

Theodore D. Doiron, Dennis S. Everett, Bryon S. Faust, Eric S. Stanfield, John R. Stoup

Abstract

The current definition of length of a gage block is a very clever attempt to evade the systematic errors associated with the wringing layer thickness and optical phase corrections. In practice, there are very large systematic operator and surface effects which cause systematic errors and most laboratories wring blocks to quartz or fused silica. We present quantitative data on these effects and show through detailed uncertainty budgets that the current definition of gage block length is the primary source of measurement uncertainty. For comparison, an uncertainty budget for gage block calibration by mechanical contact is presented.
Proceedings Title
Proceedings of SPIE
Volume
3477
Conference Dates
July 20, 1998
Conference Location
San Diego, CA, USA
Conference Title
Recent Developments in Optical Gauge Block Metrology, Jennifer E. Decker, Nicholas Brown, Editors

Keywords

dimensional metrology, gage block, gauge block, interferometry, measurement uncertainty, mechanical deformation, operator bias, optical phase, wringing layers

Citation

Doiron, T. , Everett, D. , Faust, B. , Stanfield, E. and Stoup, J. (1998), Case Against Optical Gauge Block Metrology, Proceedings of SPIE, San Diego, CA, USA (Accessed October 31, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created August 31, 1998, Updated October 12, 2021