Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Capacitance Metrology Of Curved Surfaces: Study And Characterization Of A Novel Probe Design, Philip T. Smith Jr.

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Capacitive sensors are frequently applied to curved target surfaces for precision displacement measurements. In most cases, these sensors have not been recalibrated to take the curvature of the target into consideration. This recalibration becomes more critical as the target surface becomes smaller in comparison to the sensor. Calibration data are presented for a variety of capacitance probe sizes with widely varying geometries. One target surface particularly difficult to characterize is the inner surface of small holes, less than one millimeter in diameter. Although contact probes can successfully measure the inner surface of a hole, these probes are often fragile and …