Optical measurement of blade edge sharpness

Abstract

This research aims to develop a superior way of characterizing knife sharpness. Current successful methods utilize contact destructive testing to develop a measurement protocol for sharpness however; it is in my opinion that testing in this manner, the instantaneous sharpness can never be known. Through-out this work, I investigate what physical properties determine sharpness, how failures occur in knives, the current state of art in knife sharpness testing, and then I seek to develop a new novel way of measuring knife sharpness through optical measurements.