Application of contact and non-contact measurement methods for dimensional verification of precision components with complex geometries

Product supply is an activity that has been affected by the emerging of globalization in twenty-first century. In this context, exchanging and trading goods between different countries have became possible, and in addition, activities such as design and production have been shared between different countries. In this way, cost-effective products have been supplied to the market by countries where resources and workforce are suitable. In today's world, the importance of lead times in addition to product costs has boosted the curiosity in faster manufacturing and measurement methods. For this reason, three-dimensional printers, which were at the conceptual research level in the last century, have become utilized in the production of functional parts in the industry. The increase in production speeds of these systems, also called additive manufacturing by international standards, has created a similar need for quality control and verification of final products, and three-dimensional non-contact measurement methods using optics, laser or X-ray have been started to be utilized. One of the main shortcomings of computerized scanning methods using optics and X-rays, which stand out today with their measurement speed, is the scarcity of information and accepted standards about the measurement accuracy to be made with these methods. Samples with critical size and shape tolerances were designed within the scope of this thesis study, which was carried out in order to eliminate the lack of information in the literature. These samples were produced from high strength aluminum alloy material by both additive manufacturing and conventional manufacturing methods. Afterwards, it was checked with both internationally accepted coordinate measuring systems and computer scanning using non-contact optics and X-rays. As a result of the comparisons made for a total of sixty-two different geometric dimensions and elements, the applicability of the three measurement methods to two manufacturing methods was revealed, and their advantages and weaknesses were emphasized.