Patent ID: 9500594
Filing Date: 2016-11-22
CPC Classification: G01N,G06T

Claim Text:
1. A method of automatically quantifying dendrite arm spacing in a hypoeutectic aluminum casting, said method comprising: using a computer-based system to acquire an image corresponding to a location of interest in said casting; using said computer-based system to estimate a dendrite cell size within said location of interest by overlaying said image with a gridded pattern to quantify the number of intersections between at least one cell boundary from said image and at least one portion of said gridded pattern; using said computer-based system to estimate a volume fraction of eutectic phases in said location of interest; using said computer-based system to estimate an aspect ratio of at least one dendrite cell within said location of interest; and using said computer-based system to convert said estimated dendrite cell size, volume fraction and aspect ratio into a quantified dendrite arm spacing and wherein said estimated dendrite cell size (DCS), volume fraction and average aspect ratio into a quantified dendrite arm spacing (DAS) is expressed by: where Veu defines said volume fraction and α is said aspect ratio.