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The PTB at the Control in Sinsheim

(April 22 to April 25, 1997) Hall 1, Stand E325, tel. (07261) 16 676

21.03.1997

(22. April bis 25. April 1997)
Halle 1, Stand E 325, Tel.: (07261) 16 676

This year, the Control - one of the most important professional events of its kind - will take place for the 11th time. This fair has constantly developed and is today looked upon as the "informal mouthpiece" of the whole sector of quality assurance and management.

In the sectors of priority, i.e. metrology, materials testing, optoelectronics, analyzers and QM systems, the exhibitors will again show how they can consistently design, implement and apply efficient and economical hardware and software for quality systems.

The PTB will also make use again of this platform to present itself and its current research results.

On the stand at the fair, PTB staff members will offer information on the tasks and organization of the PTB and the Deutscher Kalibrierdienst (DKD, German Calibration Service), answer questions regarding accreditation, mutual recognition of calibrations, tests and certifications etc., and will be at the visitors' disposal for discussions about technical problems as encountered in the calibration of measuring devices.

As an example of current research results, the PTB will present a selection of measurement standards developed at the PTB for the calibration of coordinate measuring machines and a new procedure which allows the accuracy of measurement of coordinate measuring machines to be assessed for any kind of measurement task.

A novel method allowing the accuracy of measurement of coordinate measuring machines to be assessed for any kind of measurement task

A measurement result is convincing only if the associated accuracy of measurement (correctly: "uncertainty of measurement") is known. In the case of devices which are always used to measure the same product in the same way, this is not a difficult task, provided a standard is available which is known with sufficient accuracy. The same task will, however, become difficult if the measuring devices concerned are universal devices, for example coordinate measuring machines: an almost infinitely great number of different measurement tasks can be carried out on such devices. Until a few years ago, it was impossible to assess the accuracy of measurement of coordinate measuring machines for a particular measurement task. The PTB has now developed a procedure which allows such an assessment. The fundamental principle of the procedure consists in measuring simple standards with the measuring instrument to be investigated. After that, the characteristic error components are determined from these measurements using a special analytical software. These error components are used to establish a computer model, whose errors of measurement are similar to those of the real device: the "virtual coordinate measuring machine". This virtual device can now be used to simulate any kind of measurement task by computer, and the accuracy of the results can be analyzed and optimized.