CREATION OF 3D MODELS FROM SEM IMAGES OF FINE PROTRUSIONS FORMED BY SPUTTER-ETCHING OF STAINLESS STEEL : CRIAÇÃO DE MODELOS 3D A PARTIR DE 'IMAGENS SEM' DE PROTRUSÕES FINAS FORMADAS PELA GRAVAÇÃO POR SPUTTER-ETCHING DE AÇO INOXIDÁVEL

Modification of gripping ability of instrument and machine parts is one of the most impotant demands, e.g., for tweezers and a friction roll handling and conveying soft bodys and sheets. Although various shapes of protrusions with bottom sizes ranging from 200 nm to 50 μm can be formed on steels by argon ion sputter-etching and the gripping ability is measured by friction tests, preparation and execution of a large number of experiments is time- and cost-consuming. Thus, it is necesarry to develop a software to predict the gripping ability of protrusions. This paper presents an approach for creating 3D models of fine protrusions from their scanning electron microscope (SEM) images, which is an essential part of the analysis and simulation. A large-scale 3D model of protrusion was created efficiently by transfering the 3D data to a software programed using Hermite function, and the protrusions were well reproduced by the software. These models will be used in finite element method (FEM) and moving particle semi-implicit method (MPS) to calculate the deformation of soft bodies and the gripping forces without slipping. The results will be applied to the development of a software to find the optimum protrusion shapes and sizes depending on the properties and shapes of soft and slippery bodies.