For some companies, visual inspection has become an essential step when seeking to improve the quality of their products. The aim of this control is to be sure of the perceived quality of the product, which often goes well beyond the quality expected by the customer. For this type of control, the controller should be able to detect any anomaly on a product, characterize this anomaly, and then evaluate it in order to decide if the product should be accepted or rejected. This paper describes how this characterization can be carried out and, more specifically, how to measure the impact of the local environment of an anomaly on the perceived quality of the product.

In the manufacturing industry, many product characteristics are of one-sided tolerances. The process capability indices Cpu (u, v) and Cpl (u, v) can be used to measure process performance. Most research work related to capability indices assumes no gauge measurement errors. This assumption insufficiently reflects real situations even when advanced measuring instruments are used. In this paper we show that using a critical value without taking into account these errors, severely underestimates the α-risk which causes a less accurate testing capacity. In order to improve the results we suggest the use of an adjusted critical value, and we give a Maple program to get it. An example in a polymer granulates manufactory is presented to illustrate this approach.

The grazing incidence X-ray reflectivity is used to determine the multilayer thickness ofGaAs/AlAs supperlattice. The measurement process includes the fitting model and themeasurement conditions (different powers of 45 kV × 40 mA, 40 kV × 40 mA and 35 kV × 40mA, different step sizes of 0.005°, 0.008° and 0.010°,and different times per step of 1 s, 2 s, 3 s). In order to obtain the valid measurementprocess, the combined standard deviation is used as the normal of the fitting resultsselection. As a result, the measurement condition of 0.008° step size and 2 stime per step with the power 40 kV × 40 mA is selectable with the operation stability offacilities and smaller error.

This work presents the results of a survey carried out among Brazilian calibrationlaboratories accredited under ISO/IEC 17025:2005 with the objective to identify how theselaboratories investigate the root causes of unsatisfactory results in proficiency testing.The survey was coordinated by the Brazilian accreditation body, the General Coordinationfor Accreditation (Cgcre), of the Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology(Inmetro).

The paper gives a brief description of the principles and the uncertainty of the acousticcalibration methods that today are applied by National Metrology Institutes andcalibration service centers. Even if some of the calibration principles have been appliedover more than half a century, the methods and the instrumentation are still being refinedin order to minimize their uncertainty, to extend their frequency ranges, to include extraparameters and to speed up slow processes. In addition to the traditional methods formicrophone sensitivity and frequency response calibration, new development areas, like forexample wind power, has created needs for low-frequency and infra-sound calibration, downto 0.1 Hz. Other high-tech areas have lead to the development of methods for phaseresponse comparison calibration of microphones for large arrays, for sound intensitymeasurement and for verification of dynamic linearity of microphones at very high soundpressure levels, up to about 174 dB that corresponds to 10 kPa.

A free-space transmission method has been used for reliable shielding effectivenessmeasurement of the easily available textile materials. Textiles with three different yarndensities were studied for their shielding effectiveness with the help of a vector networkanalyzer and laboratory calibrated two X-band horn antennas. The expressions ofuncertainty estimation have been derived in accordance with the present free-spacemeasurement setup for the calculated SE values. The measurements have shown that anelectromagnetic energy can be maximum shielded up to 16.24 dB with measurement uncertaintyless than 0.21 dB in 8.2 to 12.4 GHz range by a 160.85 μm textile. Thus,a thin textile with a high density can have higher shielding and this property mainlydepends on its intrinsic structure, frequency range and thickness. This study promises thepotential applications of such materials as a very cost effective shielding material atmicrowave frequencies with some modifications.

Since 2006, the wood preservation laboratory of Cirad is accredited by COFRAC (French accreditation committee – accreditation No. 1-1686) for tests on the durability of wood and wood-based products and on protective efficacy of wood preservatives and termite control products. The metrological approach adopted by the wood preservation laboratory is a key factor on the continuous improvement of practices. Tests to determine the resistance against wood-destroying biological agents are the most difficult of all wood analysis tests. They are aimed at assessing and quantifying the impact of living organism, such as fungi and termites, on a lignocellulosic material. The extent of variability of this impact, which in turn is linked with the diversity of these organisms and of the material, can be readily determined. The validity and reliability of the findings therefore depend directly on the quality of the metrological process, including the choice of measurement devices, their management and compliance with international standards.

Currently, most advances in dimensional metrology might be seen by the evolution of non-contact measurement (optical measurements), in order to provide traceability for different areas that needs to calibrate microscopes or optical measure machines. In a similar way, the use of image processing techniques for the measuring of objects has been the subject of recent studies in computer vision and image metrology. In the attempt to meet the requirements and demands for high accuracy dimensional metrology with image processing techniques, this work will present the application of the image registration technique for the measurement of line scales. In the conventional calibration, the scales are measured in pre-established points, generally in intervals of 10% of the total scale length. With this application, it becomes possible to provide results for all the scale marks quickly and automatically, whereas in the conventional method it would require more time and, thus, a higher cost for the fulfillment of this measurement.

Civil engineering is a branch of science that covers a broad range of areas where experimental procedures often plays an important role. The research in this field is usually supported by experimental structures able to test physical and mathematical models and to provide measurement results with acceptable accuracy. To assure measurement quality, a metrology probabilistic approach can provide valuable mathematical and computational tools especially suited to the study, evaluation and improvement of measurement processes in its different components (modeling, instrumentation performance, data processing, data validation and traceability), emphasizing measurement uncertainty evaluation as a tool to the analysis of results and to promote the quality and capacity associated with decision-making. This paper presents some of the research held by the metrology division of the Portuguese civil engineering research institutes, focused on the contribution of measurement uncertainty studies to a variety of frameworks, such as testing for metrological characterization and physical and mathematical modeling. Experimental data will be used to illustrate practical cases.

Measuring the energy efficiency of buildings and its confrontation with the current Building Energy Simulations now faces knowledge of what is commonly called “occupancy”. This work has been made in order to implement a monitoring system on a research demonstrator building at DLRCA in Angers (France). The goals were first to know the occupancy as input data of models but also to build occupancy models. Occupancy can be defined as all the action of occupants that affect building energy efficiency. The chosen monitoring deals with its presence, lightning, windows opening and internal gains. It seems that the use of an Infra- red detector allows a accuracy of 5 min in the detection of presence. The use of dry contact sensors allows the detection of five different rates of slide windows opening that can affect temperature decrease. Light sensors seem to be efficient to detect artificial lighting states when correctly configured.