Card controlled beta backscatter thickness measuring instrument
AssigneeUnit Process Assemblies, Inc.
InventorJulius Schlesinger
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An improved beta backscatter instrument for the non-destructive measurement of the thickness of thin coatings on a substrate. Included therein is the utilization of a bank of memory stored data representative of isotope, substrate, coating material and thickness range characteristics in association with a control card having predetermined indicia thereon selectively representative of a particular isotope, substrate material, coating material and thickness range for conditioning electronic circuit means by memory stored data selected in accord with the predetermined indicia on a control card for converting backscattered beta particle counts into indicia of coating thickness.
Claims2
In a beta particle backscatter instrument for non-destructively measuring the thickness of a coating on a substrate by counting beta particle radiation backscattered therefrom comprising:
- means for counting beta particle radiation backscattered from a coated substrate;
- memory means for storing data representative of a universal curve describing a relationship between calibration number and multiplied thickness corresponding to a composite relationship of a multiplicity of curves of beta particle backscatter count versus coating thickness for selectable combinations of isotope source, substrate material and coating material;
- a control card for a particular combination of isotope source, substrate material and coating material incorporating calibration idicia for determining a calibration number for the beta particle backscatter count and multiplier indicia for determining coating thickness for a particular multiplied thickness;
- means conditioned by the calibration indicia incorporated in the control card to convert particle backscatter count to a corresponding calibration number;
- means for determining the multiplied thickness corresponding to such calibration number from the universal curve;
- and
- means conditioned by the multiplier indicia incorporated in the control card to convert such multiplied thickness to indicia of coating thickness.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.