Automatic assessment of dendrite cell spacing in cast aluminum microstructures

摘要

A novel method is disclosed for exploiting common image analyzer functions to automate the measurement of dendrite cell spacing (DCS) in aluminum casting alloys. Dendrite cells are the sections of dendrites and their arms found on the plane ofpolish in metallo graphic specimens. The method presented here is discussed in detail and compared with the traditional dendrite arm spacing (DAS) measurement method that uses only welldelineated dendrites found on the sectioning plane. In contrast, themethod presented here is free from operator bias and is statistically exact. An image processing algorithm clearly differentiates dendrite cells from the interdendritic. Test lines in the form of concentric circles eliminate the end-effect error inherentwith straight lines. A statistical method is presented to quantify measurement and sampling error