Image analysis in quantitative metallography

Abstract

Quantitative metallography (QM) deals with the relationships be¬tween multi-dimensional features of a metallographic sample and its projection/intersection on a two dimensional plane.Subsequentl• QM can be related to other properties of materials. Number of pa¬rameters to be measured for QM are numerous and time consuming and this has promoted the development of automatic image analyser by which, even, the routine quantitative measurements can be done easily and quickly. So, for quality control of industrial products, it plays an important role. With the availability of reliable automatic image analyser equipment, the quantitative characterisation of a metallurgical samples becomes easier and it takes less amount of time. At the same time reliable data can be generated with suitable software and hardware attached with modern microscope. The analysis modules of a metallurgical sample are broad and they are - grain size analysis, inclusion rating, percentage, volume & area fraction, porosity, particle size, image features etc. In this review article the importance of image analyser fur the quantification of a polished and etched surface has been discussed and some of the applications for quantitative metallography of metallurgical sample have also been highlighted.