Digital image processing technique for microstructure analysis of spheroidal graphite, iron

In the present paper the microstructure analysis is done using the digital image processing technique. Digital image processing is a tool that permits a fast, complete, and accurate acquisition of information. The processing of microstructure images is to sharpen the microstructure before quantitative analysis. Previously the analysis of the microstructure taken in analog form was performed manually. This procedure is time consuming for numerous set of images. To avoid this problem, Digital Image Processing techniques are being used. In this paper the main emphasis is given on the analysis of microstructure grain boundary, which is detected using various edge detection operators. Here the digital image is converted into a binary image using a threshold value to segment the image. By this procedure we can change the intensity of the image to study the properties of grains more accurately. This also helps for counting the spheroids in the microstructure. Also the image is enhanced by applying filtering technique. The results obtained from this approach are in the form of new microstructure image with smoothed grain areas and precisely detected grain boundary. Such effect allows optimizing further analysis of material structure to perform statistical calculations of average grain size or prepare material model for Finite Element Method simulations. The results of the analysis of microstructure images help us to correlate certain mechanical properties like ductility, malleability, brittleness etc.