Regular paper

Accuracy of the subsurface damage parameters calculated by the finite difference algorithm

State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering Mechanical Engineering School, Xi’an Jiaotong UniversityXi’an, Shaanxi, China 710049

^* whairong@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

Received: 29 September 2015
Revised: 23 October 2015

Abstract

An important approach to characterize the full three-dimensional information of subsurface damage is to simulate the etching process of a sample reversely. The simulation starts from the morphology of the sample after the subsurface damage micro cracks being opened totally. During the etching experiment, it is possible for us to get the surface morphology at any moment. This paper presents a finite difference algorithm to simulate the morphology evolution during the etching process and then the surface’s morphology of the sample at a specific time can be obtained. Comparison between the simulated morphology and the measured one provides the clue of improving the precision of the finite difference algorithm. This method is kind of the fast calculation. In addition, the accuracy of this calculation of the corrosion model needs to be ensured. In order to improve the precision of calculation, the time interval should be set as the appropriate value by comparison and analysis. In this paper, the accuracy can be calculated through comparing the simulated result with the experimental result, and the maximum error of this method can be gained.