Automated quantification of SiC-particles in solidified A356 aluminium using ImagePro® plus 7.0

• The quantitative particle concentration can give important information about the cleanliness of melts for quality control in primary and secondary production of aluminum. Manual quantification of the particle concentration is normally a time consuming process and human control can bias the acquired images and particle count. The present paper explains the automated image-processing steps for the quantification of SiC-particles, with equivalent diameters from 2 to 25 μm, in solidified A356. A total of 700 micrographs, acquired with a standard white light microscope with 10 x magnification, were analyzed. The applied software (Image Pro-Plus 7.0 from MediaCybernetics®) allows for programming of macros which in turn provides the user with a higher degree of control. The automated results are compared with the results obtained by manually counting the particles in the same micrographs. The impact of the automated results on the estimated filtration efficiency was established to be only ∼3%.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Automation

Image processing

ImagePro® plus 7.0

Melt quality

Particle counting

Degree of control

Equivalent diameter

Filtration efficiency

Particle concentrations

Particle counts

Secondary production

Aluminum

Characterization

Exhibitions

Filtration

Silicon carbide

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)